Learning Appium Desktop: Find the Desired Capabilities: appPackage and appActivity. Bug in AAPT if giving just appName

This is Part 5 of 6. Care to go back to the beginning? Come back in a few days to see the next part!

When I tried running Appium Desktop, I came across some problems. I decided on using as a sample Android app, a pre-compiled one referred to me by an Introduction to Appium using Ruby by Dave Haeffner. https://github.com/appium/ruby_lib/blob/master/android_tests/api.apk
First, I started an emulator using Android Studio. Then, I started Appium Desktop.
Then I pressed: Select Start Server v1.6.4-beta -> Select Start New Session

For Desired Capabilities:

• platformName:      Android
• deviceName: emulator-5554
• app: https://github.com/appium/ruby_lib/blob/master/android_tests/api.apk

Appium can interact with a mobile app in a few ways:

• Is the app already on the emulator or actual device? You need to find the package name and the activity name of the app you want to run, and pass that into the DesiredCapabilities.
• You can pass the .apk into the app field of the DesiredCapabilities, and Appium will install the app itself. You won't have to:  adb -s emulator-5554 install myapp.apk

That didn't work. I noticed a few errors when looking at the Appium Server.

Everything started off okay. Appium fed the desired capabilities into a new AndroidDriver session. Checked that ADB was in /Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb. It saw that one device, emulator-5554 was present. It download the app to an internal folder, installing it to the emulator, and started setting up the device. 

Then an error happened:

Appium] Welcome to Appium v1.6.4

[Appium] Appium REST http interface listener started on 0.0.0.0:4723

[AndroidDriver] AndroidDriver version: 1.17.1

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[AndroidDriver] Parsing package and activity from app manifest

[ADB] Checking whether aapt is present

[ADB] Using aapt from /Users/ventmahe/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/23.0.1/aapt

[ADB] Extracting package and launch activity from manifest

[ADB] Error: packageAndLaunchActivityFromManifest failed. Original error: Command '/Users/ventmahe/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/23.0.1/aapt dump badging /var/folders/0h/hf79m7zj1xz1hdk0m3t091v8221rx6/T/2017315-9300-iudoh3.0zthyhw7b9/appium-app.apk' exited with code 1

Huh? What the heck is AAPT? What is a "Manifest"? What the heck is "Dump Badging"?

For this blog post, we will start attempting to troubleshoot these errors.

The Android Asset Packaging Tool

There are many steps to create a Android Application Package (APK).

"aapk stands for Android Asset Packaging Tool. This tool is part of the SDK (and build system) and allows you to view, create, and update Zip-compatible archives (zip, jar, apk). It can also compile resources into binary assets. Build scripts and IDE plugins utilize this tool to package the apk file that constitutes an Android application". - ELinux.org: Android_aapt

By typing aapt, I was supposed to see:

$ aapt
Android Asset Packaging Tool

Usage:
 aapt l[ist] [-v] [-a] file.{zip,jar,apk}
   List contents of Zip-compatible archive.

 aapt d[ump] [--values] WHAT file.{apk} [asset [asset ...]]
   badging          Print the label and icon for the app declared in APK.
   permissions      Print the permissions from the APK.
   resources        Print the resource table from the APK.
   configurations   Print the configurations in the APK.
   xmltree          Print the compiled xmls in the given assets.
   xmlstrings       Print the strings of the given compiled xml assets.

... But whenever I entered in the Mac Terminal: aapt

aapt: Command Not Found

... I even tried going into the directory where it was supposed to be: cd ~/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/23.0.1/aapt ... and run the command there. Command not found. 

Hrm... there seemed to be three versions of build tools:

• 23.0.1 (where Appium insisted on pointing to)
• 23.0.3
• 25.0.0
• 25.0.1
• 25.0.2

... And if I go into 25.0.2, it still says: aapt, command not found. 

What is supposed to happen? Contents of the Android Application Package, should be listed:

$ aapt list SpareParts.apk 
META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
META-INF/CERT.SF
META-INF/CERT.RSA
AndroidManifest.xml
classes.dex
res/drawable-hdpi/app_icon.png

... But the tool does not seem to be found.

If the tool could be found, aapt would unpack and decode the APK, then read AndroidManifest.xml in plaintext.

What is the Android Manifest.xml?

From Android Developers: App Manifest Page: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/manifest-intro.html

"Every application must have an AndroidManifest.xml file (with precisely that name) in its root directory. The manifest file provides essential information about your app to the Android system, which the system must have before it can run any of the app's code.

"Among other things, the manifest file does the following:

• "It names the Java package for the application. The package name serves as a unique identifier for the application.
• "It describes the components of the application, which include the activities, services, broadcast receivers, and content providers that compose the application. It also names the classes that implement each of the components and publishes their capabilities, such as the Intent messages that they can handle. These declarations inform the Android system of the components and the conditions in which they can be launched.
• "It determines the processes that host the application components.
• "It declares the permissions that the application must have in order to access protected parts of the API and interact with other applications. It also declares the permissions that others are required to have in order to interact with the application's components.
• "It lists the Instrumentation classes that provide profiling and other information as the application runs. These declarations are present in the manifest only while the application is being developed and are removed before the application is published.
• "It declares the minimum level of the Android API that the application requires.
• "It lists the libraries that the application must be linked against".

... If it can't:

• Extract the pieces of the manifest from the AndroidManifest.xml 
• Find the package name that needs to be run
• Find the activity that needs to be started

... Then the app can not launch, whether it is on an actual device, or installed in an emulator. 

Maybe there is hope?

After spending the past three days on this problem, I found a bug report, What do you do when “Command aapt dump badging exits with code 1”?

"This is a bug within aapt itself, and as you can tell from the build tools version, the bug is also apparent in the next stable release of the build tools. Here is some links showing that the bug has been around for quite a while:

1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17008364/aapt-error-getting-androidname-attribute-attribute-is-not-a-string-value9
2. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=463116

"This bug will affect you if certain manifest elements' attributes refer to XML string resources using the @string/string_name format. Some example manifest elements where this bug can occur are <meta-data ...> and <category ...>.

"In any case, this bug can cause Appium to fail because Appium needs aapt to retrieve the package name and launch activity from the APK.[1]

"My workaround for this bug is to explicitly tell Appium which application package and activity to launch, so Appium does not need to run aapt dump badging. As an example in Java code:

caps.setCapability(AndroidMobileCapabilityType.APP_PACKAGE, "com.example.app");
caps.setCapability(AndroidMobileCapabilityType.APP_ACTIVITY, ".MainActivity");

... Okay... all we need to do is set the Desired Capabilities appPackage and appActivity.

How to Find the Desired Capabilites: App Package and App Activity?

ADB Commands- How to find App Package & App Activity for Android App?
https://youtu.be/RDjNPnuyA00


"Method 1:  adb shell "dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus | mFocusedApp'"

"Method 2: aapt dump badging AppApkName.apkOR./ aapt dump badging AppApkName.apk (UGH!!!)

"Method 3: APK Info: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intelloware.apkinfo&hl=en

Okay, now we might be getting somewhere! Let's try Method 1.

Step One: Check to see if there are any Android devices running. If not, start an emulator or an actual Android device

• My Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge that already has Developer Options turned on. I connected it to my MacBook via USB. 
• On the Mac Terminal, enter: avd devices 
• It showed that in the list of devices attached, there was device: 412327b5 

Step Two: On the Android device or emulator, run the app you want to inspect.

• Okay! Let's run the Calculator app!

Step Three: Run the app on the device and find the appPackage and appActivity.

• Let's say the magic words to take all the system properties on the device, grab just what is running in the current window on the app, what is in focus, and dump those properties onto the screen. 
• This will be a call to the adb shell, i.e. the device that is connected to adb. 
• Type in the Mac Terminal: adb shell "dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus | mFocusedApp'" 

 $adb shell "dumpsys window windows | grep -E 'mCurrentFocus | mFocusedApp'"  
   
mFocusedApp=AppWindowToken{d0d077a06 
token = Token { fc44ce1 ActivityRecord{4158648 u0 
com.sec.android.app.popupcalculator/.Calculator t352}}}  

• This shows that the appPackage is com.sec.android.app.popupcalculator
• This also shows that the appActivity is .Calculator

Step Four: Start up Android Desktop

• Click on the Appium Desktop icon
• Leaving everything at default, let's select: Start Server v1.6.4 on the main page
• Once we see the server is running, let's: Start New Session
• Now we see that the desired capabilities are showing.

Step Five: Enter Desired Capabilities and Save Them

• platformName: Android
• deviceName: 412327b5
• appPackage: com.sec.android.app.popupcalculator
• appActivity: .Calculator

Let's select "Save As..." and save it as "Calculator".

Step Six: Start the New Session!

• Select: Start Session

It's Alive!!!!

Now that we have everything working, we can start using Appium Desktop to start inspecting how to interact with this app!

Whew! This one took three days to research! I need to take a break and focus on finishing off my next TechBeacon article by Monday. Check back here next Wednesday, and we can finish this one off. Until next time!

Learning Appium Desktop

• Part One: What is Appium Server and How Do You Start It With Appium Desktop
• Part Two:  How to Connect To Your Android Device Using the Android SDK, the Android Command Line Tools, and the Android Debug Bridge
• Part Three:  Setting up remote devices through WiFi
• Part Four:  Setting up Android Emulators with Android Virtual Device Manager (avd), choosing the Android operating system version
• Part Five:  Find the Desired Capabilities: appPackage and appActivity. Bug in AAPT if giving just appName
• Part Six:  Inspecting an Android app using Appium Desktop

Happy Testing!
-T.J. Maher
Twitter | LinkedIn | GitHub

// Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, Software Tester since 1996.
// Contributing Writer for TechBeacon.
// "Looking to move away from manual QA? Follow Adventures in Automation on Facebook!"