Android Testing Archives - Adventures in QA

Powerful ADB commands for Android Tester

May 7, 2018April 19, 2016 by Daniel

If you are working as mobile tester in an Android development team you are probably familiar with adb commands (Android Debug Bridge). The tool offers plenty of useful commands that help you to pull logs from the Android device or emulator. Besides pulling log files from the test device there are plenty of other useful commands that every mobile tester in an Android environment must know. Before using adb make sure the Android SDK is installed, a device is connected to your computer or an Android emulator has been started. Note: In order to use the adb commands on your test devices make sure that on every device the developer options and USB debugging are enabled.

Both options are hidden by default. On Android 4.2 and higher you can enable them by tapping seven times the build number in the Settings > About phone section. Once the developer options are enabled open them and enable USB debugging.

ADB commands

Start/ Stop ADB server

If a device is connected start the adb server to be able to interact with the device.

adb start-server

adb kill-server

List connected devices

adb devices
Will list all connected devices.

Accessibility Scanner

May 7, 2018March 29, 2016 by Daniel

Google just released a new Android app that helps you to identify accessibility problems in your Android app. The app is called Accessibility Scanner and can be downloaded from Google Play. Once the app is installed on your test device, it will guide you through the setup process, to activate the scanner in the accessibility settings of the phone.

When the setting is active you will see the blue accessibility scanner app button on your home screen of the device (floating button).

Mobile Testing with Bug Radar

May 7, 2018September 21, 2015 by Daniel

My colleague Denys Zelenchuk has developed a very helpful Android app called Bug Radar. The main task of this app is to monitor any app that is running on a test device. Whenever the app under test is crashing or not responding (ANR), Bug Radar notifies you about the problem in the notification center and is creating a error report file including the stacktrace and the device info. The report will be saved on the device in the Bug Radar folder and can be send via email for further investigation.