Testing Service Worker and Cache in Selenium - selenium

Question

I have an app that uses Service Workers and Cache API. The cache's name used in Service Worker contains GIT revision (hash) so that with every release, new cache is used and the old one removed. This is to make 100% sure users will always get latest sources (this case is fine for intended release schedule).
I'm using Selenium Java (WebDriver) tests that run few times a day (let's say when there is a change in GIT repo) and I'd like to make sure that the worker's cache is being correctly wiped with every new GIT revision.
By default, Selenium is creating a new temporary profile directory for each browser session, which means there is always no cache when the tests start. I'd like to use cache though, my idea is (let's talk about Firefox for now):
keep some model profile directory
when Selenium starts Firefox, pass the model profile to the new temporary profile, e.g. new FirefoxProfile(new File(PROFILE_MODEL))
this would ensure that some cache exists prior starting browser
once tests are finished, back up the temporary profile (as it contains updated cache) and replace the (now older) PROFILE_MODEL with the latest profile so that next test run would use this updated cache again
The "model profile update step" at the end of test run would look like this in pseudocode
File modelDir = new File(PROFILE_MODEL);
// copy current model for backup
bckPath = Files.createTempDirectory("bckProfile");
Util.copy(modelDir, bckPath);
// remove the now obsolete PROFILE_MODEL
Util.deleteDirectory(modelDir);
// copy current profile to the model dir
File profileSnapshot = currentProfile.layoutOnDisk();
Util.copy(profileSnapshot.toPath(), modelPath);
The problem is though that the call currentProfile.layoutOnDisk(); doesn't seem to contain any cache related information and I have no idea how to get path of the currently being used temporary profile (in Linux, typically something like /tmp/anonymous6209009552324183685webdriver-profile
So basically my question is, how to preserve and control browser (Firefox) cache across multiple test runs? I know it is often desired to start browser with fresh cache in tests but I think for this particular case of testing Service Workers it is quite useful to have some control over it.
Please note that I'm running the tests in CI server, so some manual solution could be quite difficult (but hey, at least it could point me to some direction...)
Update: I can initiate Firefox profile with
profile = new ProfilesIni().getProfile("test")
and then knowing the actual path to "test" model profile (model, not the copy created by getProfile call), I could replace all its files with the ones from calling ProfilesIni().getProfile("test") at the end of tests, but this does not seem to e.g. copy history of visited pages.
Update 2: This is how I start browser:
caps = DesiredCapabilities.firefox();
FirefoxProfile sampleProfile = new ProfilesIni().getProfile("test");
caps.setCapability(FirefoxDriver.PROFILE, sampleProfile);
browser = new FirefoxDriver(caps);
and I can see it creates 2 profile temporary folders:
one is created by the call new ProfilesIni().getProfile("test") and it won't get updated "ever" during the test
second one is created from FirefoxDriver.startClient method which calls NewProfileExtensionConnection.start which then calls FirefoxProfile.layoutOnDisk
Now during the tests, only the second one profile is being updated which I guess makes kind of sense. The problem is how to get the actual profile dir that is created from the capabilities...

Answer 1

You could override the FirefoxProfile.layoutOnDisk method to always use the same folder for the profile:
public class FirefoxProfileEx extends FirefoxProfile {
File profileDir;
public FirefoxProfileEx(File profileDir){
super(profileDir);
this.profileDir = profileDir;
}
public File layoutOnDisk() {
try {
File userPrefs = new File(profileDir, "user.js");
installExtensions(profileDir);
deleteLockFiles(profileDir);
deleteExtensionsCacheIfItExists(profileDir);
updateUserPrefs(userPrefs);
return profileDir;
} catch (IOException e) {
throw new UnableToCreateProfileException(e);
}
}
}
Usage:
FirefoxProfileEx profile = new FirefoxProfileEx(new File("C:\\temp\\profile"));
WebDriver driver= new FirefoxDriver(profile);

Answer 2

Known layoutOnDisk() will used to call current profile and we write or save to disk. We need to use this saved profile or dir mostly early as possible because once execution is completed then saved profile by using layoutOnDisk() is not useful. They don't work.
For more information please see here
So for firefox only thing is just saved all cookies by using "driver.Manage().Cookies.AllCookies;" use these in next execution.
I hope it is prefer to use named profile instead of taking profile from directory. Here the way to create profile
ProfilesIni profile = new ProfilesIni();
FirefoxProfile myprofile = profile.getProfile("myProfilewhichIsSaved");
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(myprofile);
I hope IE helps by not clearing before starting. here is link helps you
Also you can try by chrome profile
Thank You,
Murali