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Appium Inspector

Introduction​

TV Labs supports the use of Appium Inspector for debugging WebDriver sessions. Appium Inspector is a desktop and web application interface built for the Appium test automation framework, and works with the TV Labs WebDriver server because it is Appium compatible. It is useful for debugging and developing WebDriver scripts on real devices. Support for TV Labs as a cloud provider is available in Appium Inspector from version 2025.3.1 onwards.

What to expect:

  • ⏱️ Duration: 10 minutes
  • 🎯 Audience: Developers interested in using Appium Inspector for debugging WebDriver sessions on the TV Labs platform
  • 🧠 Outcome: Understanding how to launch the Appium Inspector both outside and during live sessions.

Also see: The official Appium Inspector Github repository provides information on using Appium Inspector.

Limitations​

The Appium Inspector is a powerful tool for debugging WebDriver sessions, but there are some limitations. The capabilities of the Inspector are limited to the functionality supported by the underlying driver. To see which drivers are used for which platforms, see the Platforms section of the Appium documentation.

Connecting via Live Session​

You may access the Appium Inspector directly from within the TV Labs Live Session product. This is useful if you are already in a session with a device, and want to start an Appium Inspector session at the same time, allowing you to toggle back and forth between the inspector and the Live Session controls.

If you prefer to connect to a TV Labs device through the Appium Inspector, skip to the Connecting via Appium Inspector section.

Before beginning, you will need a couple things:

  • Access to a TV Labs device that supports WebDriver via the Live Session page.
  • An application build to debug.

As the very first step, start a Live Session with the target TV Labs device. Once you are in a session, click the Appium Inspector button on the toolbar on the left-hand side of the screen.

Appium Inspector button in the Live Session toolbar

This opens the inspector panel. Click Start Appium Session to configure your WebDriver session.

Appium Inspector panel with no session running

First select the build you wish to target from your organization's apps.

warning

Not all drivers support sessions without selecting a build. Please see the documentation for the underlying driver to check if starting a session without any app specified is supported.

Build selection

Next, enter any extra capabilities you wish to include in your WebDriver session. This is optional, as all required capabilities are added automatically for you. You can view and copy the capabilities required for your script in the JSON preview.

Start Appium Session form

Once you are ready to proceed, click the Start Session button. This will do a few things:

  1. Sideload your selected build on the device
  2. Make a start session request to the WebDriver server for the device
  3. Initialize the Appium Inspector for this session

If Open Appium Inspector was checked, the inspector will open automatically after the session begins. Otherwise, click the Appium Inspector button in the left-hand toolbar.

While the session is running, the inspector header shows its status, such as Appium Session Active.

Appium Inspector with an active session

Congratulations! You are now connected to a WebDriver session using Appium Inspector with this device.

To end the WebDriver session, click Stop Session in the top right of the inspector.

Connecting via Appium Inspector​

A TV Labs device can be accessed directly through the Appium Inspector, without needing to start a Live Session first.

Before beginning, you will need a couple things:

  • Access to a TV Labs device that supports WebDriver.
  • Access to the Appium Inspector desktop application or web interface.

To install the Appium Inspector desktop application, go to the Appium Inspector Github Releases page and download the latest version for your device.

To access a hosted version of Appium Inspector, visit the Appium Pro Appium Inspector page.

warning

Appium Pro does not always keep the hosted inspector up to date with the latest version. If using a hosted web version of the inspector, please double check that the version is 2025.3.1 or higher to ensure support with TV Labs.

Connecting to a TV Labs device through the Appium Inspector is very similar to configuring a regular Appium script: you will need to create a set of capabilities and provide an API key to connect to the platform. For more details on available capabilities, see the Appium Scripting documentation.

In this example, we will connect to a Roku device. First open the Appium Inspector and select "TV Labs" as the cloud provider.

Appium Inspector Providers List

Next, if you don't already have an API key, create one in the API Keys page. If you already have an API key, you can skip this step.

Now we can begin to configure the capabilities to access a Roku device:

  • Add a tvlabs:build capability with the build ID of a Roku application.
  • Add a tvlabs:constraints capability with the constraints for the Roku platform.

Appium Inspector Capabilities for Roku

Now click Create Session and the Appium Inspector will connect to the TV Labs device and open the Roku application specified in the tvlabs:build capability.

Roku App in the Appium Inspector

Congratulations! You are now connected to a TV Labs device using Appium Inspector.

info

To see live playback of your session, visit the Sessions page and select the session you created.