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Debug a Basic Engine Robot

  1. To switch to Debug mode, in Design Studio, click Debug > Switch to Debug Mode on the toolbar or click the Debug button.
  2. To start debugging the robot, click Run.
  3. In the Robot view, you can watch the robot execute in debug mode.

    In the main panel, you see the results of the debugging process divided into various tabs.

    • Input/Output: List of all used variables and all values returned during debugging.

    • API Exceptions: List of API exceptions reported during debugging.

    • Log: The processing log generated during debugging. Some actions, particularly those that take a while to execute, such as the Loop Form action, write status information to this log. Step errors are also logged if configured to do so.

    • State: Whenever the debugging process is temporarily stopped, the State tab shows the robot state that is input to the current step. The State tab contains several sub-tabs.

      • Variables: Lists the variables.

      • Window, Cookies, and Authentication: Shows the state with associated dialogs.

      • Local Storage and Session Storage: Shows the HTML5 objects that have persisted locally.

      • API Exception: Generated at the current step. For all API Exceptions (and related errors), you can click the Go to button to navigate to the step (in Design mode) that generated the error. The step that generated the error becomes the current step in Design Studio.

    • Summary: An overview of the number of variables returned or written to a database and generated API exceptions so far during the debugging process.

    • Stop When: Specify the criteria required to temporarily stop the debugging process.

    • Steps to Skip: Select steps to skip such as Store in Database, Delete from Database, Execute SQL, Execute Command Line, or Send Email.

  4. Click Stop to stop debugging.

    You can stop the debugging at any time.

  5. To stop debugging when a certain event occurs, enter a Stop When action.

    Here, you can select whether the debugging should stop when values are returned, when API exceptions are reported, and when breakpoints are reached.

    The debugging always stops when the execution of the robot has completed.

    When the debugging has stopped, you can see the cause for the stop in the status bar at the bottom of the Robot Editor.

    If the debugging has stopped before the execution of the robot is complete, you can watch the current robot state on the State tab. The Variables, Windows, Cookies, and Authentications sub-tabs show the robot state in the same way as in the State View in Design Studio. The API Exception sub-tab shows the API exception, if the execution stopped because an API exception was reported.

  6. If the debugging has stopped before the execution of the robot is complete, click Run to resume debugging.

    You can also click Restart Debug to restart the debugging. This cancels the current debugging process and makes the debugger ready to start a new debug operation from the start of the robot.

    The debugging is also restarted automatically whenever the current robot is modified or replaced by another robot in Design Studio.

  7. If the robot has input variables, you can edit the variables in the Input panel. Click Stop, change the values, and then press Enter to restart debugging with the new input values.

    You cannot edit the input values while a debug is running. To change the input values, you must first restart the debugging.