topic How to improve UIA Spy mode? in Product Forum

How to improve UIA Spy mode?

SeungjeiJang — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 03:49:29 GMT

Dear All,

I’d like to ask detailed questions about the UIA Spy Mode’s performance.

I’m in a configuration test for a financial customer.

And working with a custom browser which doesn’t have an extension but fortunately, UIA Spy Mode works.

Here’s the issue.

When I tested it at the customer site, UIA Spy Mode was working but extremely slow. It took 80 seconds to identify an element.
Somehow, we’ve got the test browser from the company that developed the browser. So, we tested it locally.

On my PC, it took 5 to 8 seconds.
On one of my colleagues’ PC, it took only about 2 seconds as usual.

Questions - What makes the UIA mode identifying elements slower? And why are the results of identifying speed for several PCs different?

Config?
Environment?
Anti-virus apps?
The number of elements on the page that we’re trying to spy?
Anything else?

Thanks.

Re: How to improve UIA Spy mode?

Angelo.Carcagno — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:02:14 GMT

There are a lot of factors that could affect Spying in general based on your environment. For a list of these I suggest this KB page of suggestions:
Troubleshooting Spying

But as far as your question can we ask why you are using a custom browser and not a supported browser with the extension for browser automation?

Re: How to improve UIA Spy mode?

david.l.morris — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:11:50 GMT

The speed of UIA is likely affected by the specs of the machine, the number of elements on the screen, and some minor settings in application modeller. UIA in Blue Prism is not particularly performant, and it's always been that way. It seems as though more recent versions of Blue Prism are better, but it is still mind-blowingly slow. I would do as Angelo says and attempt to use Browser mode for the browser you're attempting to automate and then use UIA as little as possible. There are some techniques you can use such as including Match Index or using Active Accessibility instead along with Match Index and Match Reverse and stuff like that, but overall, it's just gonna be slow if you use UIA while there are a bunch of elements on the screen and the machine itself is slow.

Re: How to improve UIA Spy mode?

SeungjeiJang — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:15:37 GMT

@Angelo.Carcagno

Thank you for your comment.

The browser choice is not ours but customers. Their application is developed based on that custom browser.

Thank you the link, I will have a look.

Re: How to improve UIA Spy mode?

SeungjeiJang — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:19:18 GMT

@Dave Morris

Thank you for your comment.
It is a good point that the speed of UIA is affected by the specs of the machine... I will check the spec of the machine.
Actually, I used AA Mode instead of UIA with Match Index and Match Reverse. It's so much faster.
But some actions are not working as I expected. Probably, because the application that I'm testing at the moment is not a proper Windows Application and the elements are on the webpage...
If you want to have a look at the issue... you can find that here https://community.blueprism.com/question/about-the-select-item-action-with-combo-box-in-aa-spy-mode

The thing I still don't get is... that the speed of UIA mode on the custom browser on the customer side is 80 seconds to identify a single element... ^^;

Many thanks.