Visual Studio incorrect assignment into variable

Question

I'm using FlaUI library to automate Windows Calculator.

Since Calculator is a Windows store app, window actions such as move, change visual state etc. should be performed on the main window's parent. Doing so, i encountered the following strange issue:

Window parent = window.Parent.AsWindow();

While 'window.Parent' is x, 'parent' is assigned to be x.Parent (which in this case is desktop) for some reason.

It's not constant; sometimes 'parent' is assigned as desktop, and sometimes as expected- calculator.

I've never seen anything similar to this issue before, and have no idea how to approach this, or how to describe it in just a few keywords to search a solution.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The main issue is most certainly the GetMainWindow. This is the main window of the process. Windows is fairly inconsistent in a processes main window. Like splash screens can mess up (sometimes you get the splash, sometimes the screen after the splash). You also often get windows that are not even available anymore. The same happens with store apps as they use this proxy executable to launch. There are several things you can try:

1. Try using the first window from the process (app.GetAllTopLevelWindows(automation)[0])
2. Get the window from the desktop (automation.GetDesktop().FindFirst(cf=>cf.ByName("Calculator")))
3. Use a retry (var mainWindow = Retry.While(() => app.GetMainWindow(automation), (mw) => mw.Title != "Calculator")

Hope that helps.