Change baseUrl during test (set to null) in order to visit local file instead of URL

[dhmoon91]

Current behavior:

We are currently implementing email confirmation test.
We currently download the email file -> parse out the html content of it -> save it locally in fixture/.

In order for cypress.visit('path-to-local-file.html') to load up the downloaded content, we need to change the baseUrl that was set in cypress.json to be empty.

Cypress.config('baseUrl', ' ');doesn't switchbaseUrland keeps appending the path to local file to the originalbaseUrl`, eg: https://demo.test.com/fixtures/email-content.html

Also tried to follow https://docs.cypress.io/api/plugins/configuration-api.html#Usage but it also fails to switch out baseUrl.

I couldn't find any workaround.

One method I tried was NOT setting baseUrl in cypress.json and specify the main domain everywhere except for visiting local html file. But this also fails because we have a before hook that generates unique string for email and if you change the domain on cy.visit(), the before hook runs and the email file name won't match.

Desired behavior:

Cypress.config('baseUrl', ' '); should switch baseUrl to none.

Steps to reproduce: (app code and test code)

Posting it as pseudo-code. Will fill in more details if needed.

cypress.json

{
    "baseUrl": "https://demo.testing.com",
    "userAgent": "testing"
}

test spec file

 var emailFileName;

    before(function () {
        cy.log('ran');
        cy.task('generateGuid').then(function ($guid) {
            guid = $guid;
            emailFileName = 'tester' + guid + '@test.com';
            cy.log(emailText);
        });
    });

it('Register user', function () {

        cy.visit('/login'); //-> yields https://demo.testing.com/login
        // Fill up registration info then click 'Register' button

        cy.wait(5000);
        cy.get(sendConfirmEmailButton).click({ force: true });

        // wait for 30s to verify email body
        cy.wait(20000);
        cy.downloadEmailHtml(emailFileName, 'confirmAccount');
    });

it('Visit email user', function () {
        // Change baseurl
        Cypress.config('baseUrl', ' ');
        // TODO visit/load the confirm account html file
        cy.visit(`cypress/fixtures/confirmAccount_${emailFileName}@test.com.html`);
        cy.get('#templateBody')
            .contains('Click the button below to confirm your account');
    });

Versions

Cypress: 3.1.3
OS: Mac- mojave

[dhmoon91]

I kinda went all over the place but really, I just need to set the baseUrl to empty or null to load up the local html content file and I thought the Cypress.configure('baseUrl', '') would support this behaviour.

[jennifer-shehane]

Hey @dhmoon91, have you tried setting the baseUrl back to its default value of null? We believe this functionality should work.

Cypress.config('baseUrl', null)
cy.visit(`cypress/fixtures/confirmAccount_${emailFileName}@test.com.html`)

[dhmoon91]

Hi @jennifer-shehane .

Thanks for the qucik reply .

I just tried setting it null and Cypress seems to append localhost + random port infront of the cypress/fixtures/confirmAccount_${emailFileName}@test.com.html.

For me, cypress tries to visithttp://localhost:60465/cypress/fixtures/confirmAccount_${emailFileName}@test.com.html
and fails.

This might be related to #382?

[dhmoon91]

@jennifer-shehane Any updates? :(

[you1anna]

Any updates on this issue? It is undesirable behaviour:

Cypress.Commands.add("loginToRm", (email, password) => {
    Cypress.config('baseUrl', null)
    cy.visit(Cypress.env('rmBaseUrl'))
        .get(RM_EMAIL_FIELD).type(email)
        .get(RM_PASSWORD_FIELD).type(password)
        .get(RM_LOGIN_BUTTON).click()
        .url().should('contain', '/admin/Home')
});

The above will redirect to baseUrl in Cypress.config instead of remaining at rmBaseUrl. The alternative is to never set baseUrl in the main config, against best practise.

An update on a fix or workaround would be greatly appreciated.

[pmn4]

I am experiencing something similar:
I have several applications on subdomains which redirect to a relative path (client-side) once an authentication request succeeds (that is, the user should stay on the subdomain once they authenticate). I am testing all applications in a single suite, so I set baseUrl as "baseUrl": "domain.com" in cypress.json since "domain.com" is the superdomain for all applications.

I have tried setting Cypress.config("baseUrl", "stage.domain.com") and Cypress.config("baseUrl", null), but in either case, the page redirects to www.domain.com/home instead of stage.domain.com/home

The yellow arrow shows that my baseUrl is "domain.com"
The blue arrow points to my application's subdomain
The red arrow shows where an AJAX authentication attempt succeeds and the user is redirected using window.location.redirect("/home"). This translates to "www.domain.com/home" (our server configuration points all naked domain requests to www.)

unsetting baseUrl in my config works for the first subdomain that is visited, but subsequent subdomains do not (as latter subdomains do not descend from the first).

[mbatesR]

@jennifer-shehane Can you elaborate on why the baseURL reassignment during a test isn't applying? I have ran into cases as well where I needed to change the base URL mid-test to set key:value pairs in local storage and wasn't able to.

[zhammer]

may not work for everyone, but since i'm using cypress to test a python web application that serves up everything in a static/ directory, i've done this:

const html = /* my html */;
cy.writeFile("static/tempfile.html", html);
cy.visit("static/tempfile.html");

[jennifer-shehane]

@mbatesR Cypress changes the parent domain to match the baseUrl, in order to avoid issues with navigating on a website that does not match the parent domain. The Cypress product is just not coded to handle changing the baseUrl mid test.