Unable to open Safari app on iPhone simulator while running Selenium test using ios-driver

Question

I am trying to automate mobile web testing using ios-driver. The safari browser does not open even though the simulator launches.

The configuration as shown on terminal by running the command java -jar ios-server-standalone-0.6.6-SNAPSHOT.jar -newSessionTimeoutSec 40 -port 5555 is:

Running on: Mac OS X 10.10 (x86_64)
Using java: 1.8.0_45
Using Xcode install: /Applications/Xcode.app
Using instruments: version:6.3.2, build: 57082
Using iOS version 8.3
iOS >= 6.0. Safari and hybrid apps are supported.
Applications :
CFBundleName=Safari,CFBundleVersion=600.1.4,/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator8.3.sdk/Applications/MobileSafari.app

The Java code I used is as follows:

DesiredCapabilities caps = IOSCapabilities.iphone("Safari");
caps.setCapability(IOSCapabilities.SIMULATOR, true);
RemoteWebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL("http://localhost:5555/wd/hub"), caps);
driver.get("http://www.google.com/");

The following lines are displayed on terminal:

59:05:611 WARNING InstrumentsCommandLine.start instruments crashed (40 SEC)
59:06:040 WARNING NewSessionNHandler.safeStart Instruments failed to start in the allocated time ( 40sec):Didn't get the capability back.Most likely, instruments crashed at startup.
59:06:476 WARNING NewSessionNHandler.safeStart app has crashed at startup :normal
59:06:482 INFO IOSServerManager.findAllMatchingApplications Safari application requested for SDK version: 8.3

Any help from anyone would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This error shows up when UI automation option is not selected for your device.
Follow the below mentioned steps to enable it:
1.Navigate to your device settings.
2.Open Developers option.
3.Enable the UI automation option.

Now try running your cases.
Hope it helps.

Answer 2

1. First thing to try is to increase newSessionTimeoutSec to 80 or 120 secs.
   
   

   I.e. run instead:
   java -jar ios-server-standalone-0.6.6-SNAPSHOT.jar -newSessionTimeoutSec 120 -port 5555

---

2. If it doesn't helps below is mdiwakar's solution from a discussion of similar issue on GitHub:
   
   

   I am using mac VM, it seems the issue was instruments were crashing and i believe VM were very slow. I did the following

   1) Added Safari Option to have clean session capability
   2) Upgraded to use selenium 2.37 instead of 2.35
   3) Increased the TIMEOUT_SEC to 40 from 20 NewSessionHandler.java(configurable param)
   4) Small change args.add9("-v") to InstrumentsApple.java

   With the above mentioned changes I am able to run my tests with less frequent crashes.