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iosappium
John Hazlitt
John Hazlitt

Reputation: 449

Appium - iOS - App paths need to be absolute or an URL to a compressed file

Trying to connect to Appium Automatic Server with my capabilities results in An unknown server-side error occurred while processing the command. Original error: Bad app: Chrome. App paths need to be absolute or an URL to a compressed file

These are the capabilities I am trying: 

{
  "platformName": "iOS",
  "platformVersion": "12.1",
  "app": "Chrome",
  "deviceName": "iPhone 6"
}

Do you know how I can find the absolute path to Chrome?

I am using Appium 1.12.1 and Xcode 10.2

Upvotes: 2

Views: 5365

Answers (1)

Marc Sances
Marc Sances

Reputation: 2614

You're confusing some concepts here regarding the capabilities.

Appium is an automation framework that allows you to automate native apps, provided that you actually own them. Automation on iOS requires that the apps are signed with a developer key, it is not possible to automate a production application and much less an Apple Store one.

Appium can automate the following types of apps (Desired Capabilities):

  • Native apps (ipa files), signed with a developer certificate. Distribution certificates do not work!
  • Simulator apps (app.zip files). This will only work in iOS Simulator, since they're compiled for x86 instruction set and not ARM.
  • TestFlight and alike (HockeyApp, etc) apps. In that case, you don't set an app capability but set a bundleId one. You have to manually install the app through the platform, then start it with Appium using the bundle ID.

Again, automation ONLY works if the application is signed with a developer certificate. Applications released in the market are always signed with Distribution certificates that disallow the use of this framework.

So, you cannot "automate Chrome". What you can do, is automate Safari browser with Appium, check Appium - iOS Mobile Web Automation. This only works with Safari. It will make Appium behave more or less like a Selenium driver, but using an iPhone instead.

Upvotes: 1

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