Using sendKeys on remote IE-11 browser

You can correctly input text on remote IE-11 browsers in Automate through a custom BrowserStack capability.

Introduction

sendkeys() is a method in Selenium that allows you to type content automatically into an editable field while executing any tests.

Now, while running a Selenium test on IE11 locally or through a grid, you will sometimes face one or more of the following issues with the sendKeys Selenium command:

1. IE Driver mistypes certain special characters
2. Some characters are dropped from the input string
3. The command execution is slow

(Refer to the GitHub Issue for more information.)

To solve all the above issues, BrowserStack has a custom capability as explained in the next section.

BrowserStack capability to solve sendKeys() issue in IE-11

BrowserStack provides a custom capability that fixes the issue with sendKeys on the IE-11 browser. If you use the below capability in your test script and then use the sendKeys command, then you will not experience the bug (as stated above) while running your tests on BrowserStack.

Sample code to include the custom capability

MutableCapabilities capabilities = new MutableCapabilities();
HashMap<String, Object> browserstackOptions = new HashMap<String, Object>();
browserstackOptions.put("sendKeys", "true");
capabilities.setCapability("bstack:options", browserstackOptions);

var capabilities = {
	'bstack:options' : {
		"sendKeys" : "true"
	},
	"browserName" : "IE",
}

// for internet explorer
InternetExplorerOptions capabilities = new InternetExplorerOptions();
Dictionary<string, object> browserstackOptions = new Dictionary<string, object>();
browserstackOptions.Add("sendKeys", "true");
browserstackOptions.Add("browserName", "IE");
capabilities.AddAdditionalOption("bstack:options", browserstackOptions);

$caps = array(
	'bstack:options' => array(
		"sendKeys" => "true"
	),
	"browserName" => "IE",
)

desired_cap = {
	'bstack:options' : {
		"sendKeys" : "true",
	},
	"browserName" : "IE",
}

capabilities = {
	'bstack:options' => {
		"sendKeys" => "true"
	},
	"browserName" => "IE",
}

caps.setCapability("browserstack.sendKeys", "true");

capabilities['browserstack.sendKeys'] = 'true';

// for internet explorer
InternetExplorerOptions capability = new InternetExplorerOptions();
capability.AddAdditionalCapability("browserstack.sendKeys", "true", true);

$caps['browserstack.sendKeys'] = "true";

caps["browserstack.sendKeys"] = "true"

caps["browserstack.sendKeys"] = "true"

my $capabilities = {
  "browserstack.sendKeys" => "true"
}

You can contact support if the capability does not resolve the issue with the sendKeys command in IE-11.