[🐛 Bug]: switchFrame() doesn't always accept promise

[gavvvr]

Have you read the Contributing Guidelines on issues?

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines on issues.

WebdriverIO Version

v9.2.8

Node.js Version

v22.6.0

Mode

Standalone Mode

Which capabilities are you using?

{
    browserName: 'electron',
    browserVersion: '33.0.0',
    'wdio:electronServiceOptions': {
        appArgs: []
    }
}

What happened?

The await browser.switchFrame($('iframe')) will fail in Electron app test setup with wdio-electron-service with the following error:

WebDriverError: invalid argument: missing 'ELEMENT'

What is your expected behavior?

Based on switchFrame() WDIO docs and existing test in E2E test suite, the following construct should work with no errors:

await browser.switchFrame($('iframe'))

How to reproduce the bug.

Here is the repo to reproduce the problem: https://github.com/gavvvr/wdio-electron-service-818

Relevant log output

[0-0] 2024-11-05T22:00:38.362Z ERROR webdriver: WebDriverError: invalid argument: missing 'ELEMENT'
[0-0]   (Session info: chrome=130.0.6723.59) when running "frame" with method "POST" and args "{"id":{}}"
[0-0] invalid argument in "My Login application.should reset the frame when the page is reloaded"
invalid argument: WebDriverError: invalid argument: missing 'ELEMENT'
  (Session info: chrome=130.0.6723.59) when running "frame" with method "POST" and args "{"id":{}}"
    at async Context.<anonymous> (/Users/user/Documents/sandboxes/wdio-electron-iframe-ts/test/specs/test.e2e.ts:4:5

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

[gavvvr]

Initially I've opened a webdriverio-community/wdio-electron-service#818, but after some debugging I can see that it's rather a problem of switchFrame() implementation of primary webdriverio codebase.

The browser.switchFrame() call coming from wdio-electron-service-based test get into the following branch and context will be passed to switchToFrame() without promise resolution:

webdriverio/packages/webdriverio/src/commands/browser/switchFrame.ts

Lines 76 to 84 in 5253860

	if (!this.isBidi) {
	if (typeof context === 'function') {
	throw new Error('Cannot use a function to fetch a context in WebDriver Classic')
	}
	if (typeof context === 'string') {
	throw new Error('Cannot use a string to fetch a context in WebDriver Classic')
	}
	return switchToFrame(this, context)
	}

So, I think it should rather be fixed in this repository.

[erwinheitzman]

Hi there, I think that awaiting the promise is the quickest and easiest solution for now but I do feel like we can/should support this indeed 👍

[gavvvr]

@erwinheitzman, yeah, that's what I do as a workaround. But I would like to note that TypeScript doesn't agree with me that the result of $(...) can be awaited:

That's probably another bug with types (let me know if I should report it too), the object returned from $(...) obviously has .then() at runtime.

[goosewobbler]

I'd like to note that there's some inconsistency in the docs here: In most of the docs, e.g. the selectors examples $(...) is used with await, but in the best practices it says that "You should always use await with the exception of the $ and $$ command.".

[erwinheitzman]

@goosewobbler with v9 we introduced the .getElement method on the Element object which you can use to make TS stop complaining 🙂
I'm sure there will be leftovers pieces in the docs that we could update but why not contribute those documentation changes to the project? It is an easy way to get involved 😉

[goosewobbler]

@erwinheitzman so you would suggest the following?

switchFrame(await $('iframe').getElement())

My WDIO bandwidth is currently occupied with getting back into webdriverio-community/wdio-electron-service#308, but I'll see if I can fit it in!

EDIT: updated to add await

[erwinheitzman]

@goosewobbler yes but with the awaited added as well 👍

[christian-bromann]

but in the best practices it says that "You should always use await with the exception of the $ and $$ command.".

This has changed in v9 and we haven't really fully cleaned up our docs. Elements don't need to be awaited anymore.

Anyway, switchFrame should work with switchFrame($('iframe')) and I thought I'd have tested that.

[wdio-bot]

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