Troubleshooting end-to-end tests

See what the browser is doing

If end-to-end tests fail, it can be very helpful to see what is happening in your browser when it fails. For example, if tests don’t run at all, the test framework might be trying to open a URL that isn’t valid on your machine. This problem becomes clearer if you see the page fail in the browser.

To make the test framework show the browser as it runs the tests, set WEBDRIVER_HEADLESS=false. For example:

cd gitlab/qa
WEBDRIVER_HEADLESS=false bundle exec bin/qa Test::Instance::All http://localhost:3000

Enable logging

Sometimes a test might fail and the failure stack trace doesn’t provide enough information to determine what went wrong. You can get more information by enabling debug logs by setting QA_LOG_LEVEL=debug, to see what the test framework is attempting. For example:

cd gitlab/qa
QA_LOG_LEVEL=debug bundle exec bin/qa Test::Instance::All http://localhost:3000

The test framework then outputs many logs showing the actions taken during the tests:

[date=2022-03-31 23:19:47 from=QA Tests] INFO  -- Starting test: Create Merge request creation from fork can merge feature branch fork to mainline
[date=2022-03-31 23:19:49 from=QA Tests] DEBUG -- has_element? :login_page (wait: 0) returned: true
[date=2022-03-31 23:19:52 from=QA Tests] DEBUG -- filling :login_field with "root"
[date=2022-03-31 23:19:52 from=QA Tests] DEBUG -- filling :password_field with "*****"
[date=2022-03-31 23:19:52 from=QA Tests] DEBUG -- clicking :sign_in_button

Tests don’t run at all

This section assumes you’re running the tests locally (such as the GDK) and you’re doing so from the gitlab/qa/ folder, not from gitlab-qa. For example, if you receive a Net::ReadTimeout error, the browser might be unable to load the specified URL:

cd gitlab/qa
bundle exec bin/qa Test::Instance::All http://localhost:3000

bundler: failed to load command: bin/qa (bin/qa)
Net::ReadTimeout: Net::ReadTimeout with #<TCPSocket:(closed)>

This error can happen if GitLab runs on an address that does not resolve from localhost. For example, if you set the GDK hostname to a specific local IP address, you must use that IP address instead of localhost in the command. For example, if your IP is 192.168.0.12:

bundle exec bin/qa Test::Instance::All http://192.168.0.12:3000