Development Book V18: Video/Screenshots For Failed Test Cases

Headless Chrome has been supported since Odoo 12, enabling frontend (browser JS) test execution.

Odoo 18 further improves on testing infrastructure—though most of the core functionality remains, the framework around it has matured:

• Headless Chrome remains the default for browser/test‑tour execution.
• FFmpeg is still required to produce videos; without it, only screenshots (not full recordings) are captured.
• Command-line options like --screencasts and --screenshots continue to work for capturing outputs from failed test cases.
• Improved testing docs now guide you through:
• Defining Python unit tests
• Using JS tests / QUnit
• Writing browser tours
• Capturing screenshots & video during test failures

Setting Up Recordings in Odoo 18

1. Install FFmpeg on your test server:

                       apt-get install ffmpeg

2. Enable recording in your test command:

• To record video of failed tests:

                     ./odoo-bin -c server.conf -i my_module --test-enable --screencasts=/path/to/output

• To capture screenshots:

./odoo-bin -c server.conf -i my_module --test-enable --screenshots=/path/to/output

3 .Run your frontend or tour tests with headless Chrome as usual.

• When a test fails, Odoo will automatically write a .mp4 (if FFmpeg is installed) or .png screenshot to the specified folder.

4. Review the files to troubleshoot errors—seeing exactly where the UI test broke down.