Flaky tests
summary
Flaky tests hide in async timing, UI animation and tiny locale quirks: one project has 9,000 unit tests vs 900 UI tests where unit runs in ~1 minute and UI runs ~40 minutes. Reproductions include a week‑based‑year format using 'Y' vs 'y' that flips the date a few days a year, a kiosk keyboard where clicking body inserts an accidental 'n' because Selenium clicks element centers, moving elements and transient scrollbars that “eat” clicks. Fixes include Selenite smart-waiting, disabling animations and fixed window sizes, saving slow‑motion videos with video-recorder-java or Selenoid/Testcontainers for postmortem.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to flaky tests
- 2:29Understanding test flakiness
- 7:23Case studies and root causes
- 12:30The role of Selenite
- 14:12Deep dive: Date logic bugs
- 18:30Deep dive: Interaction flaws
- 24:08Deep dive: Animation issues
- 27:45Deep dive: Usability findings
- 32:36Deep dive: Scroll bar interference
- 39:42Best practices and conclusions
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