Appium tests do not detect content inside Flyout Detail on iOS

[kyurkchyan]

Description

Overview

We are currently in the process of Migrating Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI. To ensure that our features are working as expected we Utilize set of unit, integration and UI tests. UI Tests are written using Appium.

Our application's UX is heavily based on Flyout page. Unfortunately, on iOS platform, the Appium driver is not able to recognize the content inside the flyout details page.

This behavior can be observed using Appium Inspector as well. Take a look at the bellow screenshots that show the Appium inspector running against the Maui app with a Flyout page and comparing it with the Forms equivalent

Appium inspector running against the Maui app

Flyout selected inside a Maui app

Detail selected inside a Maui app

As you can see in the second screenshot the selected node that corresponds to the Detail page is completely empty and when you click on it the whole screen becomes "blue" denoting that the detail page is not actually selected.

Appium inspector running against the Forms app

Flyout selected inside the Forms app

Detail selected inside the Forms app

Notice how the node that corresponds to the detail page has children and you can drill until you reach the Page2Label

Version details

Appium - 2.0.0
XCUITest - 4.32.6

Steps to Reproduce

1. Clone the sample on a Mac
2. Ensure that Appium together with XCUITest drivers are installed
3. Launch the appium server
4. Run the FlyoutPlayground.Forms.iOS in a simulator with a Release mode to generate the *.app package
5. Run the FlyoutPlayground.Maui in a simulator with a Release mode to generate the *.app package
6. Set the SampleToRun property inside the UITests\appsettings.json to "Forms"
7. Run the UI tests and observe they are working as expected
8. Set the SampleToRun property inside the UITests\appsettings.json to "Maui"
9. Run the UI tests and observe they failing

Link to public reproduction project repository

https://github.com/kyurkchyan/MauiFormsAppiumTests

Version with bug

7.0.49

Last version that worked well

6.0

Affected platforms

iOS

Affected platform versions

Tested iOS 16

Did you find any workaround?

No response

Relevant log output

No response

[rkops-bd]

@jfversluis We're having the same issues with most of our applications which are running on .net8 (we have quick tested for .net9, but still te same).

Do you need more details to investigate this issue?

[rkops-bd]

This problem still occurs on .net 9 as well.

[jfversluis]

OK I looked into this a little bit. It seems to be resolved when the side-menu is collapsed, can you confirm that? So that makes it seem like whenever the flyout is open, that takes full focus over the whole screen.

So while not ideal, that might provide some workaround for the time being. It's strange that this is different between Forms and MAUI though.

Also I think this doesn't only affect testing but also accessibility.

[rkops-bd]

In our situation, the problem occurs on iPad devices, where the master/detailsview is default expanded. In this situation the detailsview is also not inspectable.

[jfversluis]

I understand, but as an experiment, can you try to close it and see if that changes the behavior? Assuming that is even possible on an iPad :D

[RemcoVBl]

@jfversluis The problem still persists, also when the side-menu is collapsed.

[reinierkops]

@jfversluis any progress on this issue? We're still facing to this issue. Like @RemcoVBl says, the issue persist when collapsing and expanding the menu.