Xcode 7 UI Testing: how to dismiss a series of system alerts in code

Question

I am writing UI test cases using the new Xcode 7 UI Testing feature. At some point of my app, I ask the user for permission of camera access and push notification. So two iOS popups will show up: "MyApp Would Like to Access the Camera" popup and "MyApp Would Like to Send You Notifications" popup. I'd like my test to dismiss both popups.

UI recording generated the following code for me:

[app.alerts[@"cameraAccessTitle"].collectionViews.buttons[@"OK"] tap];

However, [app.alerts[@"cameraAccessTitle"] exists] resolves to false, and the code above generates an error: Assertion Failure: UI Testing Failure - Failure getting refresh snapshot Error Domain=XCTestManagerErrorDomain Code=13 "Error copying attributes -25202".

So what's the best way of dismissing a stack of system alerts in test? The system popups interrupt my app flow and fail my normal UI test cases immediately. In fact, any recommendations regarding how I can bypass the system alerts so I can resume testing the usual flow are appreciated.

This question might be related to this SO post which also doesn't have an answer: Xcode7 | Xcode UI Tests | How to handle location service alert?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Xcode 7.1

Xcode 7.1 has finally fixed the issue with system alerts. There are, however, two small gotchas.

First, you need to set up a "UI Interuption Handler" before presenting the alert. This is our way of telling the framework how to handle an alert when it appears.

Second, after presenting the alert you must interact with the interface. Simply tapping the app works just fine, but is required.

addUIInterruptionMonitorWithDescription("Location Dialog") { (alert) -> Bool in
    alert.buttons["Allow"].tap()
    return true
}

app.buttons["Request Location"].tap()
app.tap() // need to interact with the app for the handler to fire

The "Location Dialog" is just a string to help the developer identify which handler was accessed, it is not specific to the type of alert.

I believe that returning true from the handler marks it as "complete", which means it won't be called again. For your situation I would try returning false so the second alert will trigger the handler again.

Xcode 7.0

The following will dismiss a single "system alert" in Xcode 7 Beta 6:

let app = XCUIApplication()
app.launch()
// trigger location permission dialog

app.alerts.element.collectionViews.buttons["Allow"].tap()

Beta 6 introduced a slew of fixes for UI Testing and I believe this was one of them.

Also note that I am calling -element directly on -alerts. Calling -element on an XCUIElementQuery forces the framework to choose the "one and only" matching element on the screen. This works great for alerts where you can only have one visible at a time. However, if you try this for a label and have two labels the framework will raise an exception.