The most recent comments I've seen were on Sep 15 as far as I've found when I check each day:
Basically someone set up a commit that would revert the change, but then someone else (Keren Zhu) and the code reviewer (Tom Lukaszewicz) both agreed that reverting the change (that is, reverting just the problematic code) would break dependencies that have been added since the addition of that change. So, he's suggesting a change to fix the code rather than revert it. And I guess no one has determined yet how to do that or hasn't submitted a commit for that yet.
After seeing @steven.boggs's reply above, I tested the Beta Channel of Edge which is on v141. From my initial testing, it looks like the UIA hanging issue really is resolved as of Edge v141, and I would assume then that it is also resolved in Chrome v141 as well.
Edge versions I tested today...
Stable Channel: v140.0.3485.81 (Official build) (64-bit)
Beta Channel: v141.0.3537.38 (Official build) beta (64-bit)
What I tested was having an object try to use Get Bounds on an element using UIA while the Restore Pages popup was showing in Edge, as I'd seen that cause the hanging/freezing issue in testing recently. I tested in the stable channel on v140 several times in a row to verify the results, and then I tested in the beta channel on v141 several times in a row as well using the same machine with the same test process. On every single test where the Restore Pages popup was showing, v140 got stuck but v141 went on the timeout path successfully without hanging.
This of course likely doesn't solve any issues with elements having changed, as I think the elements changing and the hanging issue are two separate issues that were simply introduced at the same time (even if perhaps caused by the same overall new feature of native UIA in Chromium).
My guess though is that anyone should be able to go test out the Beta channels now in Chrome or Edge, verify that your elements won't break when 141 hits the Stable channel, and then just wait for 141 to come out. You could also theoretically go ahead and install the Beta channel and use it directly in Production automations for a couple weeks until 141 goes to the Stable channel, but that sounds like a headache I personally don't want. And of course you could also do what most of us are going to do which is just wait for the waters of v141 to rush over the levee and hope that it brings only joy instead of more suffering.
If anyone is reading this and thinking "Beta Channel? wtf are you talking about", let me explain a little. I avoided it for years thinking it would be really hard to test on the beta version of Edge (I'm just assuming all this applies to Chrome but I don't know). The Beta Channel is a separate installable version of Edge that contains the latest features that will then later come out in the Stable Channel of Edge which is what the average user is on. Turns out it is easy to test the Beta Channel. You go here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download/insider and download the one that says Beta Channel. When you install it, it will install into a totally separate directory from your normal Edge install directory.
For example, here is where the normal (Stable) Edge installs for me (path below is where the EXE is):
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application
And for comparison, here is where Edge Beta installs:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge Beta\Application
So, you could actually seamlessly switch between the two in development or in an automation by simply changing a variable (perhaps an environment variable) from "Edge" to "Edge Beta" as part of the Edge executable path. You would have to deal with making sure it is installed on whatever machine it's used on of course. If it's your own desktop, that's easy enough to do.
Here's where you use that Edge EXE in Blue Prism objects.
Here's directly in Application Modeller with the root node selected:
And here's in a Navigate Stage when using the Launch action.
Here's what it looks like in the task bar with both open, showing they are running separately:
For some versions of Blue Prism and based on your settings, you may need to completely close all Edge instances before launching and attaching to the Beta one, but the most recent versions of BP (v7) should theoretically not need this, though I haven't tried.
Anyway, there could still end up being issues with v141, but it is good to see that it should work out at least to resolve the hanging issue and that it will not require any change to Blue Prism itself so we can all keep being lazy with moving to v7 because we all have too much work to do. I hope this info helps someone. I definitely appreciated being told about the Edge Beta Channel stuff. I'm so glad I know about it now.
