Unable to Initiate Session with WinAppDriver

Description

I’m using WinAppDriver with a Java Framework. When I run the test the following log is displayed:

org.openqa.selenium.SessionNotCreatedException: Could not start a new session. Response code 400. Message: Bad capabilities. Specify either app or appTopLevelWindow to create a session
Build info: version: '4.0.0', revision: '3a21814679'
System info: host: 'CHATHURANGA', ip: '192.168.8.148', os.name: 'Windows 10', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '10.0', java.version: '11.0.12'
Driver info: io.appium.java_client.windows.WindowsDriver
Command: [null, newSession {capabilities=[{appium:app=C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe, appium:automationName=Windows, appium:deviceName=WindowsPC, platformName=WINDOWS}], desiredCapabilities=Capabilities {app: C:\Windows\System32\notepad..., appium:automationName: Windows, deviceName: WindowsPC, platformName: WINDOWS}}]

Environment

• Java version: 11
• Appium Java Client version: 8.0.0-beta
• Desktop OS/version: Windows 11
• Selenium version: 4.0.0

Details

Following is the code used to initiate the session:

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setCapability("platformName","Windows");
capabilities.setCapability("deviceName", "WindowsPC");
capabilities.setCapability("app", "Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App");
calculatorSession= new WindowsDriver(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723"), capabilities);
calculatorSession.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(2));

But if I run the same code with the above capabilities using Appium Java Client v7.3.0 and Selenium 3.141 it works fine!

[KazuCocoa]

The WinAppDriver requires selenium v3 based client for now since Selenium v4 requires W3C spec protocol that is not supported by WinAppDriver yet.

[mykola-mokhnach]

Also:

https://github.com/appium/java-client/blob/master/docs/v7-to-v8-migration-guide.md#strict-w3c-specification-compatibility

The recommended way to provide capabilities for driver creation is to use specific option builders inherited from BaseOptions class. For example XCUITestOptions to create a XCUITest driver instance or UiAutomator2Options to create an UiAutomator2 driver instance. If there is no driver-specific options class for your driver then either use BaseOptions builder as the base class to define your capabilities or request driver developers to add one. Do not use DesiredCapabilities class for this purpose in W3C context.