F.A.Q.
A place to have questions and solutions.
A: You have to disable auto-correction in MacOS System Preferences. See Issue #1949
2. Q: In the newest versions of RIDE (1.7.4) and with Robot Framework 3.1.2, when I edit a Test Suite having : FOR, then, when is executed, appears the following error: FOR loop contains no keywords.. How to fix this?
A: Robot Framework is tolerant to the old : FOR format, and the test suite can be executed correctly. However, when the file is edited in RIDE, it looses the old style formatting, so you must add the terminating END.
In the next images you can see how is shown the old and new styles (the Code Editor is showing the file not formatted):
Then it must be changed to:
3. Q: I installed RIDE, on Python 3.7 but it does not start, see below the error. How to start RIDE?
C:\>ride
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\Python37\Scripts\ride.py", line 21, in <module>
from robotide import main
ImportError: No module named robotide
A: A possible way to start RIDE is:
python -m robotide.__init__
You can then go to Tools>Create RIDE Desktop Shortcut, or run the shortcut creation script with:
python -m robotide.postinstall -install
4. Q: How can I preserve the Log.html and Report.html from different test runs, preferably with a timestamp?
A: You should use the robot option for the output directory (-d) in the arguments text field. See
Issue #1891
See below an example for Windows, using date formatting in the current test directory:
-d ./%date:~-4,4%%date:~-10,2%%date:~-7,2%
The similar result in Linux or MacOS can be obtained with the date command:
-d `date +%F_%X`
5. Q: On Windows, when running test suites with Asian characters on filenames or paths, the Output and Log panels show those characters with ??. How to fix?
A: The problem happens because Windows does not use UTF-8 encoding (there are many different encodings), we don't have an easy solution to fix. You can create a command file, for example, C:\Python37\Scripts\ride.cmd with the following content:
@echo off
set PYTHONIOENCODING=UTF-8
C:\Python37\python.exe -m robotide.__init__ %*
A: Next version of RIDE, 2.0b3 or current development from master has this problem fixed [01-Dec-2022].
A: RIDE (currently version 1.7.4.1), is not compatible with Python 3.8. See the Issues with the tag Python 3.8.
A: Next version of RIDE, 2.0b1 or current development from master will support Python 3.8.
A: Robot installation instructions
RIDE runs only on the regular Python, not on Jython nor IronPython. Python 2.7 is the
minimum version. but RIDE 1.7.4 is the last version supporting Python 2.7. Please consider
upgrading to Python 3.6 or 3.7. Python 3.8 WILL ONLY BE SUPPORTED ON FUTURE RIDE 2.0.
Most other operating systems than Windows have a recent enough Python installed by default.
CentOS 7 that comes from OpenStack already has Python 2.7.5 installed. To verify,
open a terminal and type the following:
python --version
Enable Software Collections (SCL) Software Collections, also known as SCL is a community project that allows you to build, install, and use multiple versions of software on the same system, without affecting system default packages. By enabling SCL you will gain access to the newer versions of programming languages and services which are not available in the core repositories. CentOS 7 ships with Python 2.7.5 which is a critical part of the CentOS base system. SCL allows you to install newer versions of python 3.x alongside the default python v2.7.5 so that system tools such as yum will continue to work properly. To enable SCL, you need to install the CentOS SCL release file. It is part of the CentOS extras repository and can be installed by running the following command:
sudo yum install centos-release-scl
Now that you have access to the SCL repository, you can install any Python 3.x version you need.
In this tutorial, we will install Python 3.6, which is the most stable version
available and because there is a wxPython package for that version for
RobotFramework/RIDE use at the time of writing. To do so type the
following command on your CentOS 7 terminal:
sudo yum install rh-python36
yum install python3-libs
Once the package rh-python36 is installed, check the Python version by typing:
python --version
Python 2.7.5
You will notice that Python 2.7 is the default Python version in your current shell. To access Python 3.6 you need to launch a new shell instance using the Software Collection scl tool:
alias python=python3
scl enable rh-python36 bash
What the command above does is calling the script /opt/rh/rh-python36/enable, which
changes the shell environment variables.
If you check the Python version again, you’ll notice that Python 3.6 is the default
version in your current shell now.
python --version
Python 3.6.9
It is important to point out that Python 3.6 is set as the default Python version only in this shell session. If you exit the session or open a new session from another terminal Python 2.7 will be the default Python version. A simple safe way making this version permanent would be to use an alias. Place this into ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_aliases file:
alias python=python3
RIDE's GUI is implemented using wxPython toolkit.
RIDE and wxPython requires a graphical system like Gnome, KDE, X11.
When installing wxPython, there are a series of requirements that should be
installed automatically, but in some cases is better to install them before. For
example, numpy under Python 2.7, requires version 1.16.1, and it can be installed
before installing RIDE:
yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop" -y
yum install SDL
pip install numpy==1.16.1
On Linux is better to install wxPython before installing RIDE. This is because the
correct package should be downloaded or installed directly from wxPython. Otherwise,
the system will try to build the installation package and this takes time and not
always succeeds. At the time of this writing, you should use:
python3 -m pip install https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/linux/gtk2/centos-7/wxPython-4.0.7.post2-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl
To find the latest CentOS 7 whl's look to
https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/linux/gtk3/centos-7/
pip install robotframework-ride==1.7.4.1
pip install robotframework-seleniumlibrary
NOTE: If any of the above commands fail with "pip: command not found", then change the command from pip to pip3 and the command should work.
To ensure that all of the above installed correctly, use python3 -m pip list and ensure that bumpy, robotframework-ride, wxPython, robotframework and robot framework-seleniumlibrary are all listed.
python3 -m robotide.__init__
https://robotframework.org
https://robotframework.org/robotframework/latest/libraries/BuiltIn.html
https://robotframework.org/SeleniumLibrary/SeleniumLibrary.html
https://robotframework.org/robotframework/latest/libraries/Collections.html
A: The execution of RIDE fails because wxPython was upgraded to version 4.1.0. This can be solved by installing the last compatible version 4.0.7.post2:
pip install -U --force wxPython==4.0.7.post2
A: A new version of RIDE (1.7.4.2) was released to have this wxPython version locked on 4.0.7.post2. First time users will have the correct version installed. Existing users don't need to upgrade RIDE, because this was the only change.
9. Q: I have no alternative, other than install wxPython 4.1 on Python 3.8, on my Ubuntu 20.04, but the below wxpython test program fails with the error: ImportError: libSDL2-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. What can I do to solve this?
#!/usr/bin/env python
import wx
print(f"This app is running with wxPython version {wx.VERSION}")
app = wx.App(redirect=False, useBestVisual=True) # Create a new app, don't redirect stdout/stderr to a window.
frame = wx.Frame(None, wx.ID_ANY, "Hello World") # A Frame is a top-level window.
frame.Show(True) # Show the frame.
app.MainLoop()A: The missing optional system library must be installed, and then the current (2.0b1.dev1) development version of RIDE:
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libsdl2.2
sudo pip install https://github.com/robotframework/RIDE/archive/master.zip
There may be some problems with wxPython 4.1, specially at Grid Editor when typing. You should only use the Text Editor if that is the case.
10. Q: I have installed or updated SeleniumLibrary to version 4.4.0, and there are missing keyword docs, or some keywords are not recognized as such. How can I fix this, so the keywords help or auto-complete works?
A: This question and the following answers and procedures are no longer applicable (2.0b2) [01-Dec-2022].
A: The easiest way to update this documentation is (all libraries keyword docs will have to re-generated, this may cause some delay when opening "for the first time" a test suite with a "new" Library import):
- With RIDE closed, delete the DB file at:
%APPDATA%\RobotFramework\ride\librarykeywords.dbor~/.robotframework/ride/librarykeywords.db - Uninstall SeleniumLibrary 4.4.0 (you may need to use
sudo -H):pip uninstall robotframework-seleniumlibrary - Start RIDE and open or create a basic test suite using SeleniumLibrary, for example:
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Test Cases ***
SeleniumTest
Open Browser
- On the test suite settings, there is the Library import statement with SeleniumLibrary on red color. Right click on it and use
Import Library Spec XMLto locate the SeleniumLibrary.xml file attached in this comment at issue #2195. - Install SeleniumLibrary 4.4.0 (you may need to use
sudo -H):pip install robotframework-seleniumlibrary
After some seconds, the red color changes to black and you can go to Grid Editor and use the keyword docs (Open Browser should be in blue color, or the one you selected for keywords).
A: Similarly, when using SeleniumTestability plugin the full documentation should be updated. Below are the instructions to generate the corrected document (example on a Linux shell). Like above, the resulting XML is attached to the issue.
$ sudo -H pip install robotframework-seleniumtestability
$
$ python -m robot.libdoc SeleniumLibrary::plugins=SeleniumTestability SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: NoneType\=/\=/g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: str\=/\=/g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: str//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: typing.Union\[typing.Dict, NoneType\]//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: typing.Union\[str, NoneType\]//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: typing.Union\[selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement.WebElement, selenium.webdriver.support.event_firing_webdriver.EventFiringWebElement, str\]//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: bool//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: int//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
$ sed -i "s/\: typing.Union\[bool, NoneType\]//g" SeleniumTestabilityLibrary.xml
A: One you have a Python 3 working environment you can simply install these two packages using pip
pip install -U https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/linux/gtk3/ubuntu-18.04/wxPython-4.1.0-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl
pip install -U https://github.com/robotframework/RIDE/archive/master.zip
Afterwards you will be asked to create a launcher on the desktop and you are set.
13. Q: I have installed the development version (v2.0b2.dev5), but it is broken. How can I revert to a previous version?
A: You can revert to any version by using the commit ID. See below the example to revert to a good development version (v2.0b2.dev4).
pip install -U https://github.com/robotframework/RIDE/archive/2b9aaab165027064e0940029cf616a6d92bfbf84.zip
14. Q: I have installed the development version >= (v2.0b2.dev11) since June, 2022, but loading many Test Suite folders or files, became much more slower than before. How can I revert to a previous version?
A: You can revert to any version by using the commit ID. See below the example to revert to a good development version (v2.0b2.dev10). You will not have good indentation for some block keywords, and other fixes/improvements.
pip install -U https://github.com/robotframework/RIDE/archive/08c6a4ee8493bdcdbbc26e8d2a5138bf84f789f4.zip
15. Q: I have recently installed the development version and wxPython 4.2.0, since then, the Grid Editor appears empty or faulty. How to fix?
A: This question and the following answer is no longer applicable (2.0b2) [01-Dec-2022].
A: wxPython 4.2.0 is causing problems in RIDE, and they are being analysed. You should downgrade wxPython to 4.1.1 to have the Grid Editor working again.
16. Q: I have closed the Test Suites (tree) panel, and now I cannot restore it, even after restarting RIDE (current version 2.0b2)?
A: This is a bug in RIDE (and other problems are related to the Test Suites panel), and the workaround to fix is to delete the AUI Perspective line in the settings.cfg file. Follow the steps:
- With RIDE closed, open an editor to the settings file at:
%APPDATA%\RobotFramework\ride\settings.cfgor~/.robotframework/ride/settings.cfg - Find the `AUI Perspective`` line and delete it
- Save and close the editor
- Start RIDE. The position of the panels File Explorer and Test Suites is restored.
17. Q: In RIDE 2.0b3, workspace auto reload not working. In RID 2.0b1, whenever there is a script changes using other editor (e.g. VS CODE), RIDE will prompt this alert, and it will reload the workspace to it latest version. However, this feature is not working anymore in RIDE 2.0b3. Kindly advice.
A: Change initial comments with # to have a space following the # (do it in Text Editor Apply and save) Another drastic workaround: Close RIDE and Comment with a # the assert at line 1017 File "c:\program files\python\lib\site-packages\robotide\lib\robot\parsing\model.py", line 1017, in len assert seglen == cells_len
19. Q: I had installed a development or pre-release version of RIDE, for example 2.0b3, and I did not receive the new 2.0 release pop-up at start. How to restore this?
A: You need to clear the time stamp in the settings file. Follow the steps:
- With RIDE closed, open an editor to the settings file at:
%APPDATA%\RobotFramework\ride\settings.cfgor~/.robotframework/ride/settings.cfg - Find the line with last update check and delete it. For example:
last update check = 1677733333.4956899 - Save and close the editor
- Start RIDE.
You should get the new release update pop-up, like below (with the color setting you defined ;) ):
A: There may be some operating system rules that prevent Pygments to run. Ask you system Administrator to confirm and remove those restrictions.
21. Q: Using development version, 2.1dev41, I tried to change the language to French on a Linux Debian bullseye/sid with LXDE windows manager, but I got the error Cannot set locale to language "French". How to fix this?
A: Your system is missing the localization for the French language. You should try to change the system language to French, or add the language in the regional settings configuration panel.
22. Q: Using development version, 2.1.dev76 (env: Fedora Linux 40 with KDE Plasma 6, Python 3.12.5, wxPython 4.2.1). After expanding Settings in Test Cases or Keywords, and collapsing, the scrolling stops working, by using keys and not possible to use scroll bars because they disappear. How to solve this?
A: This problem should not happen after version 2.1.
A: To recover the correct scrolling, you should select another Test Case or Keyword, and return to the affected item.
A: RIDE stopped starting because the important code to read the definitions in settings.cfg is missing. You can do the workaround as explained at Forum