Several artifacts are available for helping you to deduce when something goes wrong with a test. Sauce Labs makes the following available:

• Video of the recorded test to replay what happened
• Screenshots of every detected change
• Metadata to recreate the test settings
• Command history to reproduce the test steps
• Appium server log and Device log

Sauce Labs also has some features available to assist with debugging:

• manual override to take over an automated session by clicking on a running video.

• sauce:break to pause tests at a specified time using the Sauce Javascript Executor injected in the browser

  • https://wiki.saucelabs.com/display/DOCSDEV/Annotating+Tests+with+Selenium%27s+JavaScript+Executor

• sauce:context to add comments in the command history

• test status, test name, build tag, & custom tags can be set in capabilities, during a test via JS executor, or afterwards via the Sauce REST API.

• extended debugging (currently available for chrome sessions only)

There are some other things you can do to help with debugging:

• logging good client side logging is essential
• stack traces throw exceptions when you code is not in an expected state (e.g. not on the page you expected)
• debugging step through your code with
• synchronization using proper wait strategies
• code structure make sure you are using easy to follow abstractions such as the Page Object Pattern

And a few tricks:

• keep sessions alive send a non-changing request to keep a session going for analysis
  • https://gist.github.com/sauceaaron/6e463d9e4c2ed418c1a03a1b95affa26
• appium desktop to manually recreate steps in an Appium session (automated as far as Sauce Labs knows)
• interactive commands appium ruby console, node.js appium-repl, appium-java-repl
  • https://github.com/appium/ruby_console
  • https://www.npmjs.com/package/appium-repl
  • https://github.com/mobileboxlab/appium-java-repl
• tracking header or other identifying mechanism so your network or application layer can know what
• browsermob proxy can intercept requests, modify them, and generate HAR files
• virtual USB to interact with the device

• Common error messages

  • https://wiki.saucelabs.com/display/DOCS/Common+Error+Messages

• Element not found

  • timing issues
  • not on right page

• Didn't end session

  • forgot
  • test under development
  • test crashed before cleanup

• Network

  • Sauce Connect
  • Firewall
  • Web Services

• Appium issues
• WebDriverAgent (IOS)
• Android or IOS platform issues
• Sauce Labs issues
• Network issues

• Run the same tests over time under the same conditions (build, environment, capabilities)
• Try different settings to see if the problem persists (is it IOS only, iPhone 8 only, Simulator only, Sauce Only, etc.)
• Sauce Analytics dashboard -- especially helpful if you've been setting test name & build tag
• Statistical data with Sauce Errors API
  • https://github.com/sauceaaron/erroredtests