Navigate stage click action used to work but does not work anymore

Hi Everyone,

I created a process which uses 4-5 BOs. One of the BOs has a navigate stage which simply clicks a button (a web element/button on a website which is open in Chrome). The navigate stage used to click the button just fine. Yesterday, for some odd reason the process started to fail because the Navigate stage executes (does not throw a runtime exception) but does not click the button anymore so the rest of the process flow fails due to this. When I looked into the BO action which has this Navigate stage, the Application Modeler highlights the spied element and can find it. The Navigate stage just does not click this button anymore.

Has anyone encountered this issue before? How can this be fixed (I will use Global Send Keys to send tab key presses to the website to find the button and click it as of now) and how can we ensure that web elements that could be clicked earlier when the solution was designed, can always reliably be clicked in future as well after the process runs in the production environment?

TIA!

Your method of TABbing to the button should be reliable. An alternative would be to set focus on the button and then click it.

There is no way to be sure that any current solution will continue to work on an application whose updates you don't control. Vendors sometimes have a mailing list where they announce upcoming changes. Try to get on it if you can. I have one 3rd party web application that a mission critical automation uses for a huge monthly run. This vendor has a mailing list for upcoming changes, and I'm on it, so I have some warning about future changes and I can evaluate whether those changes might impact my automation or not. Still, there have been times when an update they make shouldn't cause an issue, but it does. In those cases, I've had to spend some long days and nights diagnosing the issue and resolving it. Sometimes, a few fields or other elemants just need to be re-spied, but usually the resolution in my case involves focusing a field before entering data into it, or adding pauses between steps. I've sometimes had to tab onto the field, enter data, and tab off.

The issue could also be caused by Chrome itself. Chrome updates very frequently, and any update could impact your existing automations. You just have to be ready to resolve the issue urgently if one arises.

@Pete_L Good idea re subscribing to mailing lists of vendors for upcoming changes. Makes sense about Chrome updates. It must have been a Chrome browser update that broke my solution. This is useful information for managing processes in future and scheduling fixes for potential updates that impact running processes. Thank you!

The following worked to solve the click problem: checking "Use fixed browser extension port (31924) only" under System in Blue Prism and rebooting system. Then changing spy mode to UIA for the button from Browser Mode for Chrome.