Screenshot attachment on failure in Selenium Java - Test Execution Trace

Test Overview

This test opens a webpage, tries to find a button, clicks it, and verifies the page title. If the test fails, it takes a screenshot and saves it for debugging.

Test Code - JUnit with Selenium WebDriver

Selenium Java

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.OutputType;
import org.openqa.selenium.TakesScreenshot;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.io.FileHandler;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ScreenshotOnFailureTest {
    private WebDriver driver;

    @Before
    public void setUp() {
        driver = new ChromeDriver();
    }

    @Test
    public void testButtonClickAndTitle() throws IOException {
        driver.get("https://example.com");
        WebElement button = driver.findElement(By.id("start-button"));
        button.click();
        String title = driver.getTitle();
        try {
            Assert.assertEquals("Expected Page Title", title);
        } catch (AssertionError e) {
            takeScreenshot("failure_screenshot.png");
            throw e;
        }
    }

    private void takeScreenshot(String fileName) throws IOException {
        File srcFile = ((TakesScreenshot) driver).getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
        FileHandler.copy(srcFile, new File(fileName));
    }

    @After
    public void tearDown() {
        if (driver != null) {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }
}

Execution Trace - 8 Steps

Step	Action	System State	Assertion	Result
1	Test starts and Chrome browser opens	Chrome browser window is open and ready	-	PASS
2	Navigates to https://example.com	Browser displays the example.com homepage	-	PASS
3	Finds element with id 'start-button'	Button element is located on the page	-	PASS
4	Clicks the 'start-button'	Page reacts to button click, possibly navigates or updates	-	PASS
5	Gets the page title after click	Page title is retrieved	-	PASS
6	Checks if page title equals 'Expected Page Title'	Title is compared to expected string	Assert.assertEquals("Expected Page Title", title)	FAIL
7	On assertion failure, takes screenshot and saves as 'failure_screenshot.png'	Screenshot file is created in test folder	-	PASS
8	Test ends and browser closes	Browser window is closed	-	PASS

Failure Scenario

Failing Condition: Page title does not match 'Expected Page Title' after clicking the button

Execution Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What happens immediately after the test detects the page title is incorrect?

A A screenshot is taken and saved

B The browser closes immediately

C The test retries clicking the button

D The test ignores the failure and continues

Key Result

Taking a screenshot only on test failure helps quickly understand what went wrong without cluttering storage with unnecessary images.