Tips to handle first hurdles using selenium webdriver on IE browser

Some useful tips while launching tips in launching browser:

          Hurdle: Get following error on launching the IE browser:
Exception in thread "main"org.openqa.selenium.remote.SessionNotFoundException: Unexpected error launching Internet Explorer. Protected Mode settings are not the same for all zones. Enable Protected Mode must be set to the same value (enabled or disabled) for all zones. (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information).

In case such error is displayed in the console, it is asking to set same protected mode setting for all the zones. This can be set as shown in screenshot below:

 Hurdle:  Some Websites especially in QA environment do not have proper certificates installed due to which we get an error Page with issue with security certificate. Once user clicks on Continue to this Website (not recommended), a pop up appears. How to handle the pop up window?

Usually in QA environment, on navigating a page is https://, certificate error is displayed. The links in the Page are identified easily using selenium, but the pop up is not handled properly using alerts as:

Alert alert = driver.switchTo().alert();

alert.accept();

Alerts are used to handle javascript alerts that pop up in between.

Alerts can be used to accept a pop up, dismiss a pop up,getText(),SendKeys.

I tried to handle the pop up for res://ieframe.dll/ using alerts, but it did not work out. On further trying, I find a simple solution to the solution. The solution to the problem is to add res://ieframe.dll/ to the trusted sites or local intranet.

       Hurdle: Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.remote.SessionNotFoundException: Unexpected error launching Internet Explorer. Browser zoom level was set to 150%. It should be set to 100% (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information

This error occurs in case the zoom level is set different from 100% zoom level.

So to consolidate, before running any test in IE, we should ensure :

      a.      Protected mode is set same for all the internet zones and

      b.      Zoom level is set as 100% in the IE browser.

     How do we maximize the browser on launching the browser?

Using  below code , we can maximise the browser:

WebDriver driver;

File file = new File("D:\\Selenium\\IEDriverServer.exe");

System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver", file.getAbsolutePath()); 

driver = new  InternetExplorerDriver();

driver.manage().window().maximize();