uncaughtException: The frame is bigger than expected

The problem

Appium is sometimes crashing when running with video recording against real iOS devices.

Environment

• Appium version (or git revision) that exhibits the issue: v1.16.0-beta.1 (also happens on v1.15.0)
• Last Appium version that did not exhibit the issue (if applicable): Unsure, we just started using video recording
• Desktop OS/version used to run Appium: macOS 10.14.5
• Node.js version (unless using Appium.app|exe): v12.10.0
• Npm or Yarn package manager: npm 6.10.3
• Mobile platform/version under test: iOS 13.1
• Real device or emulator/simulator: Real
• Appium CLI or Appium.app|exe: CLI

Details

We are running native iOS tests against a real device with video recording on, per test. At the start of each test, we start video recording. At the end of each test, we stop video recording. There are multiple tests per suite run.

Sometimes Appium will crash when attempting to start the next video recording, with an error like the following:

uncaughtException: The frame is bigger than expected. Length: 1347703880, max: 1000000
Error: The frame is bigger than expected. Length: 1347703880, max: 1000000
    at LengthBasedSplitter._decode (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-ios-device/lib/util/transformer/length-based-splitter.js:37:13)
    at LengthBasedSplitter._decode [as _transform] (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-ios-device/lib/util/transformer/length-based-splitter.js:19:48)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Transform._read (_stream_transform.js:189:10)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Transform._write (_stream_transform.js:177:12)
    at doWrite (_stream_writable.js:428:12)
    at writeOrBuffer (_stream_writable.js:412:5)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Writable.write (_stream_writable.js:302:11)
    at Socket.ondata (_stream_readable.js:722:22)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:209:13)
    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:305:12)
    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:286:11)
    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:220:10)
    at Pipe.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:182:23)

This may be related to the following issues: https://github.com/appium/appium/issues/13229 https://github.com/appium/appium/issues/13451

However, our problem differs in that we are only seeing these crashes when utilizing video recording, and our frame sizes seem absurdly high compared to the other issues. I should note, that this seems to happen more frequently on our older phones (iPhone 6+) compared to our newer phones (iPhone Xs), leading me to believe that this issue is exacerbated by how quickly the phone is to respond to video recording requests.

Link to Appium logs

https://gist.github.com/grant-mccarriagher/aaac30d0d76b4bb0d7eae3c55d339e98

Here’s a log of the suite when the error pops up.

[hemantbanafal]

@mykola-mokhnach I am still getting this issue with Appium 1.16.0

2020-01-08 15:18:09:878 [HTTP] --> POST /wd/hub/session/77ae062f-6fa2-4cf4-8288-4c76a63e226a/appium/start_recording_screen
2020-01-08 15:18:09:878 [HTTP] {"options":{"timeLimit":600,"forceRestart":true,"videoQuality":"medium"}}
2020-01-08 15:18:09:879 [W3C (77ae062f)] Calling AppiumDriver.startRecordingScreen() with args: [{"timeLimit":600,"forceRestart":true,"videoQuality":"medium"},"77ae062f-6fa2-4cf4-8288-4c76a63e226a"]
2020-01-08 15:18:09:879 [XCUITest] Executing command 'startRecordingScreen'
2020-01-08 15:18:09:881 [DevCon Factory] Releasing connections for 8543a569e3d21db7778f649b71187bdfa50cdec6 device on 9120 port number
2020-01-08 15:18:09:882 [DevCon Factory] No cached connections have been found
2020-01-08 15:18:09:884 [WD Proxy] Matched '/appium/settings' to command name 'getSettings'
2020-01-08 15:18:09:884 [WD Proxy] Proxying [GET /appium/settings] to [GET http://localhost:8120/session/2C814C20-270A-41FE-8BBC-26AF290D4B31/appium/settings] with no body
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy] Got response with status 200: {
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy]   "value" : {
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy]     "shouldUseCompactResponses" : true,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy]     "mjpegServerFramerate" : 10,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy]     "activeAppDetectionPoint" : "64.00,64.00",
2020-01-08 15:18:09:889 [WD Proxy]     "snapshotTimeout" : 15,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "elementResponseAttributes" : "type,label",
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "keyboardPrediction" : false,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "screenshotQuality" : 1,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "keyboardAutocorrection" : false,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "useFirstMatch" : false,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "reduceMotion" : false,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "defaultActiveApplication" : "auto",
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "mjpegScalingFactor" : 100,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "mjpegServerScreenshotQuality" : 25,
2020-01-08 15:18:09:890 [WD Proxy]     "includeNonModalElements" : false
2020-01-08 15:18:09:891 [WD Proxy]   },
2020-01-08 15:18:09:891 [WD Proxy]   "sessionId" : "2C814C20-270A-41FE-8BBC-26AF290D4B31"
2020-01-08 15:18:09:891 [WD Proxy] }
2020-01-08 15:18:09:893 [DevCon Factory] Requesting connection for device 8543a569e3d21db7778f649b71187bdfa50cdec6 on local port 9120, device port 9120
2020-01-08 15:18:09:893 [DevCon Factory] Cached connections count: 1
2020-01-08 15:18:09:894 [DevCon Factory] Successfully requested the connection for 8543a569e3d21db7778f649b71187bdfa50cdec6:9120
2020-01-08 15:18:09:925 [ffmpeg] ffmpeg version 4.2.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
2020-01-08 15:18:09:925 [ffmpeg] 
2020-01-08 15:18:09:925 [ffmpeg]   built with Apple clang version 11.0.0 (clang-1100.0.33.8)
2020-01-08 15:18:09:925 [ffmpeg]   configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.2.1_2 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-version3 --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags='-I/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-13.jdk/Contents/Home/include -I/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-13.jdk/Contents/Home/include/darwin -fno-stack-check' --host-ldflags= --enable-ffplay --enable-gnutls --enable-gpl --enable-libaom --enable-libbluray --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-librubberband --enable-libsnappy --enable-libtesseract --enable-libtheora --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-lzma --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libspeex --enable-libsoxr --enable-videotoolbox --disable-libjack --disable-indev=jack
2020-01-08 15:18:09:925 [ffmpeg]   libavutil      56. 31.100 / 56. 31.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libavcodec     58. 54.100 / 58. 54.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libavformat    58. 29.100 / 58. 29.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libavdevice    58.  8.100 / 58.  8.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libavfilter     7. 57.100 /  7. 57.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libswscale      5.  5.100 /  5.  5.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libswresample   3.  5.100 /  3.  5.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg]   libpostproc    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
2020-01-08 15:18:09:926 [ffmpeg] 
2020-01-08 15:18:09:977 uncaughtException: The frame is bigger than expected. Length: 1347703880, max: 1000000
Error: The frame is bigger than expected. Length: 1347703880, max: 1000000
    at LengthBasedSplitter._decode (/Users/qaserver/.nvm/versions/node/v9.9.0/lib/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-ios-device/lib/util/transformer/length-based-splitter.js:37:13)
    at LengthBasedSplitter._transform (/Users/qaserver/.nvm/versions/node/v9.9.0/lib/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-ios-device/lib/util/transformer/length-based-splitter.js:19:48)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Transform._read (_stream_transform.js:185:10)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Transform._write (_stream_transform.js:173:12)
    at doWrite (_stream_writable.js:406:12)
    at writeOrBuffer (_stream_writable.js:392:5)
    at LengthBasedSplitter.Writable.write (_stream_writable.js:290:11)
    at Socket.ondata (_stream_readable.js:646:20)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:180:13)
    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:269:12)
    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:256:11)
    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:213:10)
    at Pipe.onread (net.js:581:20)

[KazuCocoa]

appium:safariWebInspectorMaxFrameLength can customize it. https://github.com/appium/appium-xcuitest-driver#web-context