Problem with getValue and Appium 1.8.0 on Android

From @ianrenauld on May 8, 2018 20:18

The problem

This is very similar to #2574. With Appium 1.8.0 I cannot getValue from an <input> field on Android (Hybrid App - it works fine on iOS). We receive no RESULT, but if I switch to the older, non-W3C calls, it works. The error from Appium seems to be "unknown command", but we already check for this value. The difference from before (#2574) is that this call seems to timeout, so I don't think we ever get to the check for unknown command.

Environment

WebdriverIO version: 4.12.0
Node.js version: 8.11.1
wdio testrunner, running synchronously
Appium 1.8.0

Details + Logs

Here is the log with WebdriverIO 4.9.9 (uses non-W3C calls):

[14:48:29]  COMMAND     POST     "/wd/hub/session/aac6fead-ac07-4d34-9799-5ca20ffa2103/element"
[14:48:29]  DATA                {"using":"name","value":"username"}
[14:48:29]  RESULT              {"ELEMENT":"0.7004955660714918-3"}
[14:48:29]  COMMAND     GET      "/wd/hub/session/aac6fead-ac07-4d34-9799-5ca20ffa2103/element/0.7004955660714918-3/attribute/value"
[14:48:29]  DATA                {}
[14:48:29]  RESULT              "toto"

Here is the log with WebdriverIO 4.12.0 (uses W3C calls):

[14:55:57]  COMMAND     POST     "/wd/hub/session/9c667f8e-d46b-4d32-bb0b-75af98e51557/element"
[14:55:57]  DATA                {"using":"name","value":"username"}
[14:55:57]  RESULT              {"ELEMENT":"0.13486487362687805-3"}
[14:55:57]  COMMAND     GET      "/wd/hub/session/9c667f8e-d46b-4d32-bb0b-75af98e51557/element/0.13486487362687805-3/property/value"
[14:55:57]  DATA                {}

After this last line, nothing happens until the test timeout. From appium.log:

[debug] [JSONWP Proxy] Proxying [GET /wd/hub/session/ce7ca87d-6679-4802-ad1c-48196811f466/element/0.8170637210466369-3/property/value] to [GET http://127.0.0.1:8000/wd/hub/session/7ea27f9476f8927b9d13a1fb22201ad4/element/0.8170637210466369-3/property/value] with body: {}
[JSONWP Proxy] Got unexpected response: unknown command: session/7ea27f9476f8927b9d13a1fb22201ad4/element/0.8170637210466369-3/property/value

I tried playing around with the utilities.js helper file, but the isUnknownCommand method already checks for "unknown command". My feeling is that this method is never actually called. I think there is a failure in waiting for the response in the RequestHandler.js file. Unfortunately, my understanding of what is going on in there is too limited for me to find a solution...

Code To Reproduce Issue

For any <input> element in an Hybrid app, just do getValue() on it.

Copied from original issue: webdriverio/webdriverio#2726

webdriverio-boneyard / v4