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MW_Didata's avatar
MW_Didata
Super Contributor
9 months ago
Solved

Backticks in textboxes using the Keys command

Related to ticket from 2 years ago:  testcomplete-questions/testexecute-enters-in-textbox/247032 Somehow, during the test run when using Keys, sometimes a ` (backtick) is entered into the field. O...
  • MW_Didata's avatar
    MW_Didata
    2 months ago

    For those in the future that face the same problem here is how I fixed it:

    My keyboard language was set to "English (International)".
    Meaning to enter a backtick (`) you have to press it twice, same for quotes (").
    The press once is used to make special characters, ' + a = á etc.

    I think it might have been a windows bug where it whould register the key pressed once,
    even though it was never pressed.


    The fix is to set the keyboard language to "English (United States)".


    This fixed the issue by disabling the 2nd press needed to make the actual chars (`, ', ")
    but now I can no longer make á, é, í, ó, ú, ý or ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ etc.
    I can live with that tbh.

Hassan_Ballan's avatar
Hassan_Ballan
Icon for Champion Level 3 rankChampion Level 3
9 months ago

Out of curiosity, how are you interacting with the field?

Do you just send keys to the field, or tab / click so the cursor is in the field before you send keys?

I click on the field to make sure my cursor is in the field before I send my keys, I don't have the large amount you have but never had problem with it.

MW_Didata's avatar
MW_Didata
Super Contributor
9 months ago

Just the keys method in most cases, After searching TC does over 3500 keys entries, so adding a click/focus before every one just isn't possible.

  • Hassan_Ballan's avatar
    Hassan_Ballan
    Icon for Champion Level 3 rankChampion Level 3
    9 months ago

    Before considering any course of action and for the sake of isolating such anomaly root cause, perhaps you could create an isolated test project to experiment with by looping to reproduce the problem. Once consistently accomplished, and in the same loop you can experiment with possible work arounds such as click in the field or lead the key strokes with Ctrl+A.

    Such suggestions are not the solutions, just ideas to help you move a step forward. Worst case scenario would be to apply work around to handful of fields that exhibit such odd behavior, and I think that would be a good idea.

    • MW_Didata's avatar
      MW_Didata
      Super Contributor
      9 months ago

      I made a checking loop last Friday that tests the fields from the examples. It presses [Enter] 10,000 times in one field and 1000055[Enter] in the other field. Unfortunately, this issue did not arise.

      It took about 2.5 hours for both fields, and there were no issues.

      Trying to force this issue is a hard problem, it doesn't happen often enough for me to determine why it occurs.

      I checked the Windows Event Viewer, searched most if not all of the internet, and I can't seem to find anyone else with this issue.

      EDIT: it ran for 3 days btw, I dont want to leave that on since it messes with my normal tests.

      • Hassan_Ballan's avatar
        Hassan_Ballan
        Icon for Champion Level 3 rankChampion Level 3
        9 months ago

        In that case it is logical to conclude that it is not TestComplete keys operation, nor the application. Sequence of events and combination of involved technology stack could hold the cause, and that is impractical to pursue. 

        I would give up on explaining/fixing it and add to my routine a check to ignore, log warning, and move on. I had to do that for Salesforce application, only after a long run a test case would bring up a specific page with fields incorrectly as read only.