Window is invisible and thus cannot be activated

Question to help diagnose:



When you type in "Test Element 1" into the one field (the second field in that recorded script) is there any sort of component or screen refresh?  What it seems is that, upon typing into that field and then tabbing to the next, some sort of screen update/redraw is happening that causes TC to lose the handle of the window you have referenced as "edit".

Hi,



Also, in which line of your routine does this error occur? Also, what is in the 'additional info' section of the error in the log?

I have the same problem, but at a bigger scale.

My whole main window became invisible to TestComplete (it used to be ok before). When I look at it in Display Object Properties Window, the "VisibleOnScreen" property is true, but when I run any script involving any objects from the main window, this property is false for all of them including the main window itself. Somewhere on this forum there is an advice to activate the parent object first (before calling an object that has invisibility problem), but the parent of the main window is the application's process, and a process doesn't have "Activate" method. I tried Sys.Refresh() too, didn't help.

I use TC 7.52 (JScript), Windows7x32 (I tried to switch Aero off, didn't help), the application is developed in Visual Studio 2010 (C++) and has a COM component. 

Hi,



VisibleOnScreen of an object is true only if this object is currently drawn (you can see it on your monitor). If it is not drawn, VisibleOnScreen will always be false, not matter how many times you refresh the object tree. Try using Visible instead.



As for Activate, process shouldn't have it. This method is applied to windowed objects.

My object is definitely visible.



I have tried the activate parent solution but to no avail.



I have checked the source code (VS 2008 c++) and there is definitely no refresh taking place. 

Hi,



It is an inplace editor, right? Can you create a snapshot of the problematic object (use the 'edit' variable from your example) right before calling its SetText method and post this snapshot here?

Jared,



Thank you for your reply. Could you please also answer the following question?



My object is definitely visible on screen. I'm not trying to use VisibleOnScreen or Visible, I'm trying to click a button in the main window of the AUT, but I get the "the window is invisible and thus cannot be activated" error. In this topic which describes a similar problem you wrote "Before clicking, check its VisibleOnScreen property. If it is False, try activating the parent window by calling its Activate method." So, following this advice, I checked the VisibleOnScreen property (and it's False when my test script is running, but True when it's not). I know that a process doesn't have Activate method, and that's why I can't follow the rest of the advice ("try activating the parent window by calling its Activate method"; the main window doesn't have parent windows, naturally), and that's why I asked my question: what to do if the main window of the application is drawn on screen but any action in a TestComplete script that interacts with this main window fails with the "the window is invisible and thus cannot be activated" error?

Hi,



Do you get this error when trying to interact with the main window itself or with controls located in it (such as buttons)? What happens if you call the Activate method of your main window? Are you sure that your test tries to work with the correct control (you can check this on a breakpoint or by using object snapshots)? Depending on your application, there can be invisible objects which meet the same recognition parameters, but which are not accessible. If TC actually tries to work with one of such objects, it will fail.

Hi Jared



Sorry for slow response.  Automated testing is just one of my many jobs!



I have attached a snapshot taken at the point at which the text was about be entered, as below

Sub Test4

Dim wndPrestigeSystemAdmin

Dim toolbarWindow32

Dim edit

Set wndPrestigeSystemAdmin = Aliases.Pradmin.wndPrestigeSystemAdmin

Set toolbarWindow32 = wndPrestigeSystemAdmin.ReBarWindow32.ToolbarWindow32Call toolbarWindow32.ClickItem("Add", False)

Set edit = wndPrestigeSystemAdmin.page327702.Item.Edit

Call edit.SetText("Test 1"Call edit.Keys("[Tab]")

Call edit.SetText("Test Element 1")

Call edit.Keys("[Tab]")

FileName = "C:\temp\GMeakinInfo.txt"

SaveRecursive = true

SaveFields = true

SaveMethods = true

' Saves the snapshot

Call SaveObjectSnapshotToFile(edit, FileName, SaveRecursive, SaveAllProperties, AdditionalProperties, SaveFields, SaveMethods)

Call edit.SetText("T1")

Call toolbarWindow32.ClickItem("Save", False)

End Sub



Look forward to your response



Gary

Test4 wndPrestigeSystemAdmin toolbarWindow32 edit wndPrestigeSystemAdmin = .Pradmin.wndPrestigeSystemAdmin toolbarWindow32 = wndPrestigeSystemAdmin.ReBarWindow32.ToolbarWindow32 toolbarWindow32.ClickItem("Add", ) edit = wndPrestigeSystemAdmin.page327702.Item.Edit edit.SetText("Test 1" edit.Keys("[Tab]") edit.SetText("Test Element 1") edit.Keys("[Tab]")FileName = "C:\temp\GMeakinInfo.txt" SaveRecursive = SaveFields = SaveMethods = SaveObjectSnapshotToFile(edit, FileName, SaveRecursive, SaveAllProperties, AdditionalProperties, SaveFields, SaveMethods) edit.SetText("T1") toolbarWindow32.ClickItem("Save", ) Look forward to your responseGary