Error in using UIAutomatorviewer for testing Android app in Appium

Question

I have to automate an Android application, I am doing the same through Appium.

The problem I am facing is after launching the Appium server, the app is getting installed in the emulator 4.4.2. To inspect the element I am using UIAutomatorviewer which comes default with SDK. But while inspecting the element of the app, I am getting the error:

Error obtaining UI hierarchy
Reason:Error while obtaining UI hierarchy XML file.com.android.ddmlb.SynchException.Remote object doesn't exist.

I tried to find the solution so that I can inspect the element so that I can script, but in vain.

1. Can someone please tell how to fix the issue so that I can inspect elements?
2. Is there any other way I can inspect element in the app apart from using UIAutomator viewer?

Answer 1

After my tryst with the uiautomator viewer i came to know that we get the error only when:

appium server is running and we try to capture the screenshot using uiautomatorviewer.

So, whenever you want to use uiautomatorviewer make sure that server is in stopped state.

Answer 2

I fixed the same issue by using following methods.

(1) Connect your Android device to your development machines;

(2) Go to command line in terminal or DOS command line for Windows;

(3) Using "adb shell" into your Android devices;

(4) Change the user to root by input "su root" in command line;

(5) Change the access right to /data/local/tmp by input "chmod 777 /data/local/tmp";

(6) Go back to uiautomatorviewer and do screen shot again, the error should be gone;

I guess there are some file can't be access if it doesn't own right in /data/local/tmp.