Unexpected User Session Locking

[DavidE]

We just implemented our first test that runs for more than 15 minutes, and have run into a problem I did not anticipate.  Our company requires that the screen saver and lock occur after 15 minutes of inactivity for security reasons.  This is causing the test to fail because it has to interact with the desktop.

I did not anticipate this behavior because TestExecute is interacting with the desktop continually during the test.  There are no long idle times in the test.  Why is this happening?  Is there some setting that I am missing that I can change to prevent this behavior besides disabling the screen saver/lock screen?

Thanks,

David

[tristaanogre]

Question: Does the locking happen while the test is running?  Or are you leaving the machine unattended and having a task scheduled to execute?  Checking to make sure that the idle timeout is actually occurring during the test.

I would also take a look at your automation and make sure that it is, in fact, using "Click" and "Keys" actions to interact with the application.  If you're using "SetText" or other methods to interact that don't ACTUALLY simulate user actions, this could be why this is happening.

[DavidE]

You are probably correct with your statement.  This is a test in Internet Explorer, and it is using the Navigate command in my Keyword test.

[DavidE · Accepted solution]

This test is a large data loop that goes to about 50 different URLs and validates content on the pages.

I started trying to modify the test to not use the navigate function and to enter text into the address bar, but was not having as consistent results as I would like.

So, instead, I simply added a  Keys step that simply hits the SHIFT key before the Navigation statement, so each time through the data loop, I am in effect hitting the SHIFT key before entering the URL, which keeps the machine from going to the lock screen for being idle.

Thanks for the tip!

[tristaanogre]

Bingo, that would do it.  Glad to help!