Top 15 Challenges in Automation Testing

An effective test automation system is necessary for today’s agile software development environments. Automation works excellently, especially in the case of smoke and regression tests, and helps the QA teams to create and execute test cases that complex easily. To ensure efficient automation deployed in your software testing it is important to know the challenges in automation testing before you start.

Common Challenges in Automation Testing

Here are the most common test automation challenges that teams usually face while adopting automation testing, along with the best solutions to overcome these pitfalls.

1. Test Case Prioritization

When the number of automated test cases grows, it becomes hard to decide which ones to run first. We need to prioritize to balance coverage and execution time. This is even more important when deadlines are tight. Critical tests must run often, but picking them from hundreds of cases can feel overwhelming.

For example, in a financial app, tests for security and transactions are very important. If there are tests for UI, accessibility, and transactions, we must prioritize security and transaction ones first. If not, critical bugs may go unnoticed.

2. Maintaining Test Data and Environments

Managing reusable and consistent test data is not easy. At the same time, keeping environments similar to production takes effort and resources. For example, a healthcare app can fail some automated tests because patient data wasn’t consistent across test environments. The team fixed this by automating database snapshots and restoring them before every test run.

3. Network Disconnections

Network disconnection is a common automation challenge that a QA team faces wherein they find it hard to access databases, remote access VPN , third party services, APIs, specific testing environments, etc. due to unstable network connections. These network disconnections cause unnecessary delays and hinder the testing process.

Apart from disconnections, another cause of worry is the inability to access virtual environments which are generally used by the testers for testing applications. QA teams need to have a good monitoring solution in place that can help fix the issue as soon as it occurs and prevent the whole software delivery pipeline from getting affected.

4. Test Script Issues

QA teams may face various problems related to test scripts if they lack the coding related skill sets. Teams facing these issues can leverage reusability (reusing test scripts) to solve the problems and maintain their code. They can maintain the code in a better way by treating test code as production code. Apart from this, periodic testing of the code should be done along with scheduling debugging sessions and identifying key issues with object identifiers.

5. Handling Dynamic User Interface Elements

Modern apps have dynamic elements like dropdowns and AJAX content. These keep changing, making automation scripts fail often due to unstable locators or timing issues. For example, a travel booking site’s test script can fail sometimes because its date picker had dynamic IDs. The team fixed it using relative locators and explicit waits.

6. Fixing Code Smell

A code smell is basically any characteristic in the code of a program that has a negative impact on the design quality. Maintaining the code quality is not only important for the programmers but also for the testers.

Fixing code smell can help a QA team achieve:

1. Faster test results in lesser execution time
2. Help make the automation test suite more robust
3. Reduce maintenance cost and effort significantly

It is not possible to find most of the code smell by manual reviewing. In many cases, automated code review tools are used to identify all the bad smell present in the source code.

7. Testing Against Wrong Data

In most of the cases, the QA teams are found to be testing against wrong data as it sometimes becomes difficult to get the right data. This right data is the one that the application will be processing in production.

Data relevancy and data accuracy are the two most important prerequisites for automated testing to give good results. Complicated processes and communication gaps can also prevent the testing teams from getting the updated and most relevant data. 

The QA teams should use a robust reporting and analytics solution in order to achieve fast feedback and enhance the overall productivity of the team by working on the data lags.

Read here – Different test automation team structures

8. Upfront Investment

One of the most common concerns, especially for teams not having big budgets, is the high investment required at the initial phase of implementing automation. The investment in setting up a test automation suite prevents the testers from implementing automation testing. On top of operational costs, you may also have to bear licensing costs.

Even if you are considering using an open-source tool such as Selenium or Appium, a level of investment is required to train the testers to use these frameworks. Here’s a good read on the hidden costs of test automation. So, it is better to choose a tool that gives you ROI. Choose an automation tool that helps reduce costs in all areas of your concern.

9. Stability Issues

The stability of the devices is one of the key issues with device labs, as mobile devices are unstable. There are many elements in mobile devices that are subject to constant change, including operating systems, regular updates, performance, etc.

The solution is to keep updating and maintaining the labs to ensure the stability and testability of the devices, or use a cloud-based lab with real devices to test applications. Cloud-based labs can cost a fraction of the cost of setting up a real device lab at your location. If you are looking for a test automation tool, go for one that supports cross-browser testing by default and allows plug in and do that when needed. An example of this is Testsigma, which lets you create test cases on the web and mobile and APIs in one place and execute them on real devices of your choice.

Create simple English automated tests and run your tests on the devices of your choice. No setup or ramp-up delays!

Testsigma lets you create test cases on the web as well as mobile and APIs in one place and execute them on real devices of your choice.

10. Picking the Right Automation Tool

The Gemini World Quality Report in 2018 found that over 50% of IT giants lacked suitable automation tools for their testing teams. This is due to lack of knowledge, lack of expertise, and tool costs exceeding the budget, which are the most common reasons for automation failure. Therefore it is one of those challenges in automation testing that is essential for successful automation efforts.

11. Communication and Collaboration

Good communication between developers, testers, and stakeholders is key. If teams are not aligned or don’t share requirements well, it can lead to redundant tests or missed areas. Poor collaboration can also make updating scripts harder.

For example, an e-commerce app team can face delays because the dev team and QA team, working in different locations, didn’t share payment gateway requirements clearly. This caused duplicate testing efforts.

12. Taking Real User Conditions into Account

It’s hard to simulate real-world conditions like network speed, device setup, or user behavior in automated tests. Scripts often assume ideal situations, which leads to missing bugs users face in real life. For example, a video streaming app can pass tests on high-speed networks but buffers a lot on slower networks. The team later used network throttling tools to test for these scenarios.

13. Device Fragmentation

There are too many devices, OS versions, and screen sizes to cover them all. Automation scripts may pass on one device but fail on another because of compatibility issues. For example, a retail app may work fine on Android but can have layout issues on some iOS devices. Tests running on limited devices missed this bug in early stages.

14. Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) Challenges

Automated tests need to run fast and reliably in CI/CD pipelines. Slow tests, flaky scripts, or tool issues can delay deployments. For example, an online banking system’s regression tests took too long to run, delaying CI/CD pipelines. Running tests in parallel helped solve this issue.

15. Security Testing Automation

Automating security tests is hard because it needs special tools and skills. The tests also need to simulate attacks like SQL injection or XSS. For instance, an e-commerce site’s team may use automated security tests for payment gateways. But they may struggle to understand false positives, causing delays. Later, they can add OWASP ZAP for better results.

Conclusion

You can decide the best-suited one based on the nature and extent of your automation testing, whether the automation tool falls in your budget, and it matches your organization’s technical and business-related requirements.

When choosing a test automation tool, it is important to consider the nature and extent of your automation testing, budget, and the organization’s technical and business-related requirements. To some extent, QA teams face test automation challenges and failure, so it is essential to start early and watch for these top common test automation challenges. We have compiled a list of tips for choosing the right tool for test automation.

If you are looking for a one-stop test automation tool to speed up test case creation and execution, try Testsigma. It offers a unified end-to-end test automation ecosystem that helps you run automated tests in a giant test lab on the cloud.

The robust reporting and analytics facility helps get dynamic test reports at all levels to analyze the test case results and mitigate the key issues as soon as they are found.

Testsigma also saves significant time and effort in setting up test cases through its scriptless creation in simple English.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is one of the biggest challenges in automation testing?

Generally automating flaky tests are the most difficult difficulty in automation testing that generates inconsistent results or fails intermittently. These tests also takes time and effort while also eroding the trust in the process of automation.

What are the major limitations of test automation?

The high initial expense of setting up automation infrastructure, as well as the necessity for experienced employees to build and manage automated tests, are two important limits for test automation. The inability to automate certain forms of testing, such as exploratory testing and usability testing, is another constraint.

How to overcome technical challenges while doing the test automation?

To overcome technological problems during test automation, it is critical to have a thorough grasp of the technology stack being tested, as well as qualified automation engineers capable of creating robust and maintainable automation frameworks. It is also critical to employ the appropriate automation tools and technology for the job, as well as to have a well-defined testing strategy that considers the limitations of test automation.

What are the real time challenges in selenium automation?

Selenium automation faces real-time challenges such as dealing with dynamic web content, synchronization issues between the automation tool and the application being tested, and cross-browser compatibility issues. It also requires maintaining test suites and integrating automation testing into a continuous integration and delivery pipeline.

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