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Troubleshooting with IE Snapshot: Tips & Best Practices

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Automating IE Snapshots for Continuous IntegrationInternet Explorer (IE) remains present in many enterprise environments despite its deprecation. When legacy web applications must support IE, reliable testing and diagnostic artifacts are essential. One valuable artifact is an “IE Snapshot” — a captured representation of the browser’s state (DOM, rendered output, screenshots, network logs, console logs, and environment info) at a specific moment. Automating IE snapshots as part of a Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline increases visibility into regressions, accelerates debugging, and preserves reproducible evidence for intermittent or environment-specific failures.

This article explains why IE snapshots matter, what a comprehensive snapshot should contain, strategies and tools to capture them automatically, how to integrate snapshotting into CI workflows, and best practices to keep snapshots useful, manageable, and secure.

Why automate IE snapshots in CI?

  • Faster debugging: Snapshots provide immediate context (what the page looked like, console errors, network activity) when tests fail in CI, reducing back-and-forth between developers and QA.
  • Capture flaky or environment-specific bugs: Some IE-only issues are hard to reproduce locally; an automated snapshot preserves exact conditions that caused a failure.
  • Auditability: Snapshots create a reproducible record that teams can attach to bug reports or retention logs for compliance or historical analysis.
  • Reduced need for manual triage: Instead of reproducing errors manually, engineers can review snapshots to determine root causes earlier.

What to include in an IE snapshot

A useful IE snapshot is more than a screenshot. Include both visual and technical information:

  • Visuals
    • Full-page screenshot at the page size used by the test (and optionally a viewport screenshot).
    • Optional: a pixel-diff-friendly screenshot captured consistently (same viewport, disable transient UI).
  • DOM and styling
    • Serialized DOM (outerHTML) for the document or specific failing elements.
    • Computed styles for key elements, or a stylesheet snapshot if dynamic styles are present.
  • Console and JS errors
    • Console logs including error stack traces, warnings, and relevant console.info messages.
  • Network
    • Network request/response logs (URLs, status codes, response sizes, timings, and response bodies for relevant requests).
  • Environment
    • User agent string and IE version/patch level.
    • OS and display resolution.
    • Browser settings that may affect rendering (document mode, Protected Mode status, zoom level, enhanced security settings).
  • Test context
    • Test name, CI job ID, timestamp, test URL, and any custom metadata (branch, commit SHA, build artifact links).
  • Optional extras
    • Heap snapshots or memory info if investigating memory leaks.
    • Video recording of the test run (useful for races and animations).
    • Accessibility tree snapshot for a11y regressions.

Tools and techniques for capturing IE snapshots

Because modern browser automation tools focus on Chromium/Firefox/WebKit, automating IE requires using tools that support the Windows COM-based Internet Explorer or using compatibility layers. Below are approaches with recommended tools.

1) WebDriver (IE Driver) with Selenium

  • Use the official IEDriverServer (Selenium InternetExplorerDriver). It supports automation of IE 11 on Windows.
  • Capture:
    • Screenshots via WebDriver’s get_screenshot_as_png().
    • DOM via driver.page_source for serialized HTML.
    • Execute JavaScript to collect computed styles, zoom level, or to serialize app-specific state.
    • Use browser logs where available; note that IE WebDriver’s console logging support is limited — use JS-instrumentation to capture window.console calls and unhandled errors.
  • Pros: Mature API, broad language support.
  • Cons: Requires Windows runners and careful IE security/zoom settings. Console/network logs require extra instrumentation.

2) BrowserMob Proxy or FiddlerCore for network capture

  • Use a proxy to intercept HTTP(S) traffic from IE running under automation.
  • BrowserMob Proxy can capture HARs (HTTP Archive) with timings and response bodies. FiddlerCore (commercial) provides deeper Windows-native control and decryption.
  • Pros: Rich network capture including response bodies and timings.
  • Cons: Setup complexity (proxy certificates for HTTPS), Windows-specific configuration.

3) UI Automation & Win32 tools for screenshots and system info

  • Use native Windows tools or libraries (PowerShell, UIAutomation, AutoHotkey, WinAppDriver) to capture screenshots, window hierarchy, and OS-level diagnostic info.
  • Pros: Can capture elements outside the browser process (dialogs, OS prompts).
  • Cons: Additional tooling to orchestrate.

4) Custom in-page instrumentation

  • Inject JavaScript into the page under test to:
    • Attach window.onerror and console wrappers to collect errors and console output.
    • Collect application state (Redux store, JS variables) via postMessage to the test harness.
    • Serialize computed styles for elements of interest.
  • Pros: Complete control over what’s captured; works around limited WebDriver logs.
  • Cons: Requires app knowledge and may be intrusive.

5) Video recording

  • Use screen recording tools (ffmpeg with gdigrab, Windows Game DVR APIs, or commercial screen capture SDKs) to record the test run.
  • Pros: Shows dynamic behavior and timing issues.
  • Cons: Large files; needs retention policies.

Implementing snapshot capture in a CI pipeline

Below is a practical design for integrating IE snapshots into Jenkins/GitHub Actions/Azure Pipelines or similar CI systems.

CI runner requirements

  • Windows-based CI agents (Windows Server / Windows ⁄11) with IE 11 installed.
  • Preconfigured IE settings:
    • Zoom set to 100%.
    • Protected Mode settings consistent across zones (or use registry/driver settings to bypass).
    • Required certificates installed for proxy HTTPS interception.
  • IEDriverServer.exe placed on PATH or accessible by the test framework.

Workflow steps

  1. Start a network proxy (BrowserMob Proxy or FiddlerCore) and configure IE to use it.
  2. Launch the IEDriver and start the browser session.
  3. Inject in-page instrumentation (console capture, error hooks).
  4. Run the automated test steps.
  5. On any test failure (or always, depending on policy), gather snapshot artifacts:
    • driver.get_screenshot_as_png()
    • driver.page_source
    • Execute JS to produce structured JSON containing console logs, captured JS errors, computed styles, and app state.
    • Retrieve HAR from the proxy.
    • Save environment metadata (user agent, OS, timestamp, build info).
    • Optionally record video for the test duration.
  6. Package artifacts into a timestamped folder and upload to CI artifact storage (or a dedicated snapshot store).
  7. Attach snapshot links to test failure reports, issue trackers, or Slack notifications.

Example: Selenium (Python) snippet to capture core artifacts

from selenium import webdriver import json import time import os driver = webdriver.Ie(executable_path="C:/drivers/IEDriverServer.exe") try:     driver.get("https://example.com")     # Inject console capture     driver.execute_script("""       window.__console_logs = [];       (function(orig){         ['log','warn','error','info'].forEach(function(m){           var origFn = orig[m];           orig[m] = function(){             window.__console_logs.push({method:m, args: Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)});             if (origFn) origFn.apply(console, arguments);           };         });       })(console);       window.addEventListener('error', function(e){         window.__console_logs.push({method:'error', args:[e.message, e.filename, e.lineno]});       });     """)     # Run test actions...     time.sleep(2)  # placeholder for real actions     # Capture artifacts     os.makedirs('artifacts', exist_ok=True)     with open('artifacts/screenshot.png', 'wb') as f:         f.write(driver.get_screenshot_as_png())     with open('artifacts/page.html', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:         f.write(driver.page_source)     console_logs = driver.execute_script("return window.__console_logs || []")     with open('artifacts/console.json', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:         json.dump(console_logs, f, indent=2)     # Additional: fetch HAR from proxy if configured finally:     driver.quit()

Storage, retention, and size considerations

  • Decide which snapshots are retained: failures only, failures + flaky runs, or all runs. Storing everything quickly consumes space.
  • Compress artifacts (ZIP) and strip large binaries if not needed (store thumbnails instead of full videos when appropriate).
  • Retention policy: keep detailed snapshots for N days/weeks; store summaries (screenshots + logs) longer.
  • Secure access: snapshots may contain sensitive data (responses, cookies). Store artifacts behind authorization and scrub or mask PII before upload when possible.

Best practices

  • Capture snapshots on failures by default; sample successful runs periodically to detect silent regressions.
  • Standardize snapshot format and naming (buildID_branch_testname_timestamp) to simplify indexing.
  • Ensure IE runs in a consistent environment — same zoom, window size, and document mode — to reduce noise in comparisons.
  • Instrument the application minimally and only when necessary; avoid changing app behavior inadvertently.
  • Automate cleanup of old snapshots and monitor storage usage.
  • Include metadata that maps a snapshot to a specific commit and CI job for traceability.

Troubleshooting common issues

  • Flaky element interactions: add diagnostic waits and collect DOM snapshots around failing interactions.
  • Missing console/network logs: implement in-page JS logging and use an HTTP proxy for full network capture.
  • CI agent UI inactive: CI agents sometimes run headless or with no active desktop session. Use interactive sessions for IE tests or specialized virtualization that presents a desktop (VM with active session).
  • HTTPS traffic decryption fails: ensure proxy certificate is trusted by the test machine.

Conclusion

Automating IE snapshots in CI bridges the gap between ephemeral test failures and actionable debugging data. While IE automation requires Windows-specific infrastructure and extra setup for logs and network capture, the payoff is faster triage and more resilient support for legacy applications. Focus on capturing a balanced set of artifacts (screenshots, DOM, console, network, and metadata), automate capture on failures, and manage storage and security to keep the system sustainable.

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