Fatal Exception in adb logs: UIAutomation not connected

[pradeipp]

I'm facing this strange issue where the UiAutomator2 driver crashes during session teardown with IllegalStateException: UiAutomation not connected. I'm running tests on real Android devices in CI. This error occurs consistently during the cleanup phase after a test has completed successfully. The issue appears to be a race condition where the UiAutomation connection is terminated before AndroidJUnitRunner can properly clean it up.

• Appium Version: 2.16.2
• UiAutomator2 Driver Version: 4.1.2
• Platform: Android
• Device: Real Android devices in device farm
• Android Version: Seen in multiple versions, 25-35

Device log:

--------- beginning of crash
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: Instr: androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: Process: io.appium.uiautomator2.server, PID: 9313
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.IllegalStateException: UiAutomation not connected, UiAutomation@ced004b[id=-1, flags=0]
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at android.app.UiAutomation.throwIfNotConnectedLocked(UiAutomation.java:1239)
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at android.app.UiAutomation.disconnect(UiAutomation.java:296)
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at android.app.Instrumentation.finish(Instrumentation.java:249)
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at androidx.test.runner.MonitoringInstrumentation.finish(MonitoringInstrumentation.java:409)
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner.onStart(AndroidJUnitRunner.java:474)
03-17 15:03:51.397  9313  9340 E AndroidRuntime: 	at android.app.Instrumentation$InstrumentationThread.run(Instrumentation.java:2218)

Appium options:

{
   "platformName": "Android",
   "appium:automationName": "uiautomator2",
   "appium:noSign": true,
   "appium:enforceAppInstall": true,
   "appium:app": "application.apk",
   "appium:adbExecTimeout": 90000,
   "appium:androidInstallTimeout": 90000,
   "appium:autoDismissAlerts": true,  "appium:autoGrantPermissions": true,
   "appium:ignoreHiddenApiPolicyErrors": true,
   "appium:udid": "9FT9K20621905709"
},

[mykola-mokhnach]

I would say such behaviour is expected as we need to make sure that all testing-related processes have been cleaned up properly. Failing to do so may corrupt following tests (e.g. having a random stacktrace in a log is better than a following test fail)

Feel free to improve that code if you know how.

[pradeipp]

Hi @mykola-mokhnach, Thank you for the prompt response as always.

I frankly don't know much about the project so it'll be a super steep learning curve. And I don't wanna give any false hope either as I'm very underprivileged in terms of free time in my life right now.

I guess I'll just leave this open for now. Thanks once again :)

[mykola-mokhnach]

I've added some fixes into the driver version 4.1.4+
please update your driver and check if there is still this exception present in the logs. Also make sure you properly close your sessions on the client side before starting new ones

[pradeipp]

Yeah it seems to have been fixed! Thanks a lot @mykola-mokhnach! Will close the ticket.