Forum Discussion

colsson's avatar
colsson
Occasional Contributor
7 years ago

Property Wait to avoid Window destroyed error on Activate

Which property and property value should waited for before calling Activate on an object to avoid the error: "The window was destroyed during method execution".   Activate Function: https://suppor...
  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    7 years ago

    OK, I'm not sure I'd do that code...  

     

    So... why use "WaitChild" over "FindChild"?  Wait allows you to customize the wait time for TestComplete to wait for the object to be present.  Now, just came to memory, you CAN use FindChildEx.  This combines the search functionality of FindChild with the Wait feature of WaitChild.  

     

    If you use FindChildEx, make sure that you set the "refresh" property to "true".  That might help with the problem that you're originally reporting.  Basically, what's happening is that you're finding the object but after the object is found, it's destroyed and recreated... changing the in-memory handle of the object hence why it says it is destroyed before you are able to act on it.

     

    So... there is something that's happening between when you run your application and when you try to find that child object that is causing that object to be destroyed and recreated.  If I was in your shoes, what I'd do is start doing some investigation around that startup process of your application to see if there is some other property or process or something that will give you an indication that the application is ready for interaction before you go searching for the child object.  

colsson's avatar
colsson
Occasional Contributor
  • What is the advantage of using WaitChild over FindChild?
  • FindChild offers the searching capability of named property values compared to WaitChild which offers wildcard search, what if the search has to be done through FindChild would you then use WaitChild on the found object?
Set result = Utils.CreateStubObject
Set obj1 = obj.FindChild(...)
If obj1.Exists Then
  Set result = obj1.Parent.WaitChild(obj1.Name, timeout)
End If

 

tristaanogre's avatar
tristaanogre
Esteemed Contributor
7 years ago

OK, I'm not sure I'd do that code...  

 

So... why use "WaitChild" over "FindChild"?  Wait allows you to customize the wait time for TestComplete to wait for the object to be present.  Now, just came to memory, you CAN use FindChildEx.  This combines the search functionality of FindChild with the Wait feature of WaitChild.  

 

If you use FindChildEx, make sure that you set the "refresh" property to "true".  That might help with the problem that you're originally reporting.  Basically, what's happening is that you're finding the object but after the object is found, it's destroyed and recreated... changing the in-memory handle of the object hence why it says it is destroyed before you are able to act on it.

 

So... there is something that's happening between when you run your application and when you try to find that child object that is causing that object to be destroyed and recreated.  If I was in your shoes, what I'd do is start doing some investigation around that startup process of your application to see if there is some other property or process or something that will give you an indication that the application is ready for interaction before you go searching for the child object.  

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    Not really a property for checking that... basically, if the object is found, it can be activated.  The problem you're having is that the object is found then, between when it is found and when the Activate is called, something is destroying the object in memory and recreating it.  Perhaps try removing the "Refresh" function?  Not sure if that's going to cause that kind of process. 

     

    FindChildEx might be a newer function.  If you're running TC 9, it's possible that it is not available in that version.

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    A possibility just occurred to me...  could there be more than one object that matches the criteria you're using in your "FindChild" method?  FindChild will find the first one and stop... so, if your search criteria is not specific enough, it could be that you're finding an object which is not the one you want and then, when the one you want appears, it destroys the other one?

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    Actually, that could very well be the cause...  if you're closing the application and opening it rapidly, is it possible that there are two copies of your application present in memory for a brief time, especially if it takes some time for your app to complete the close process?  So... what could be happening is that you're actually grabbing the object from the application that is in the process of shutting down....

     

    Try something like this to close your application this will wait until the myApp process is unloaded before running it again.

     

    myApp.Close(); //Don't know if this is the exact command you're using
while (Sys.WaitProcess('myApp', 1000).Exists) {
    Utils.Delay(1000);
}
myApp.Run()
  • colsson's avatar
    colsson
    Occasional Contributor
    7 years ago

    For some unknown reason FindChildEx does not work while FindChild does work. (TestComplete 9)

    Using FindChildEx would have been an improvement but it is not crucial.

     

    Your description of the cause of the problem makes sense.

    The .Refresh function is called on the function between finding it and calling .Activate on it, that could be the cause of this error which only happens infrequently.

     

    I could not find anything to wait for to give an indication that the application is ready, I was hoping to find some corresponding property in TestComplete.

  • colsson's avatar
    colsson
    Occasional Contributor
    7 years ago
    • "The object is found" is that equivalent to object.Exists = True?
    • I have removed the "Refresh"

     

    Kind Regards

    colsson

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    Yes... if the FindChild method returns the object... or if WaitChild returns the object after the time out, the object that is returned will have the "Exists" property set to true.

     

    Does it work better without the Refresh?

  • colsson's avatar
    colsson
    Occasional Contributor
    7 years ago
    • It does not work better without the Refresh, the infrequent error (The window was destroyed during method execution) occurred again on the new version of the test which does not have Refresh and has an Exists check.

    If this problem is ever solved then I'll get a nice "aaaah" feeling :smileyvery-happy:.

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    Then we're back to trying to figure out what is destroying and recreating the object or determining from some other indicators in other objects of the application as to when things are done "processing" before you move on to the object activation.  For that... I'm sorry, not being there, I can't necessarily help with that.  This is going to take some Sherlock Holmes work on your part, observation, trial and error, etc. Sorry. :(

  • colsson's avatar
    colsson
    Occasional Contributor
    7 years ago

    Thanks!

    At least I know that there's (probably) not an easy solution that I'm missing.

  • colsson's avatar
    colsson
    Occasional Contributor
    7 years ago

    This application is started and terminated several times in the test therefor it's possible but not certain that this is the cause :smileyhappy: