Launching and stopping appium server programmtically

As the Appium documentation55 mentions,

--bootstrap-port : port to use on device to talk to Appium server

I never change the bootstrap-port, changing it and acting in this way might be a bug in Appium. @bootstraponline @jlipps Is that a bug??

As of the other problem you mentioned, that nothing is stored in the logs: I took a look at the log you provided and I can see that Appium logs are present and I quote:

[36minfo[39m: Welcome to Appium v1.2.0 (REV e53f49c706a25242e66d36685c268b599cc18da5)
[90mdebug[39m: Non-default server args: {"address":"127.0.0.1","bootstrapPort":4242,"noReset":true,"log":"C:\Users\mkarthik\workspace\Android\AppiumMobileAutomation\src\com\log\appiumLogs.txt"}
[36minfo[39m: Appium REST http interface listener started on 127.0.0.1:4723
[36minfo[39m: LogLevel: debug

Thanks for providing this useful info, helped me a lot.

This is what worked for me..
CommandLine command = new CommandLine("cmd");
command.addArgument("/c");
command.addArgument("C://Users//....//Appium//node.exe");
command.addArgument("C://Users//...//Appium//node_modules//appium//bin//appium.js");
command.addArgument("--address");
command.addArgument("0.0.0.0");
command.addArgument("--port");
command.addArgument("4724");
command.addArgument("--no-reset");
command.addArgument("--log");
command.addArgument("C://Users//...//log//appiumLogs.txt");
DefaultExecuteResultHandler resultHandler = new DefaultExecuteResultHandler();
DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
executor.setExitValue(1);
executor.execute(command, resultHandler);

How do we stop the server and free the port in the end?

This does not work for me.

When i try to re-run the test, I see the error:
[31merror[39m: Couldn't start Appium REST http interface listener. Requested port is already in use. Please make sure there's no other instance of Appium running already.

I have to manually kill the process from Windows Task Manager and the re-run the test.

It works just fine with me .... Are you sure you are not doing something wrong??

Hey, Guys

I use processBuilder for that. It has method destroy().
You could check my example in the thread:

I thought about using it at first, but it turned out that it doesn't destroy any spawned processes started by your application. You will end up with memory leaks and probably some errors when you try to open it again.

It perfectly closes child processes. As you can see, there is a process tree and when cmd.exe (with PID 6320) get closed - all child processes get closed as well

As I understood from the image you shared, you are starting a new JVM inside the original one. That's why when you call the destroy function, the Java process and all of its child processes are destroyed. In my case, I was starting the Appium server from the original JVM which means that all of its spawned processes won't be destroyed until the original Java JVM terminates.

P.S: I am running more than one server instance simultaneously and I can't wait to clear up memory at the end when the JVM terminates.

Parent java process from the screenshot above - is IDE:-)
Just test run via "mvn test" command-line and got the same result: all processes closed perfectly!

Looks like it's working with the destry method and there is no need to taskill the process .... I am not sure why it wasn't working with me when I tried it?
Anyway, I will give it another try. Thanks

Hi Everyone,

When I tried to launch the server, I am geeting this below error:
" /Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node/bin/node: cannot execute binary file "

My code is this, Can anyone please help on this ?
CommandLine command = new CommandLine("/bin/sh");
command.addArgument("/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node/bin/node");
command.addArgument("/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node_modules/appium/bin/appium.js");
command.addArgument("--address");
command.addArgument("127.0.0.1");
command.addArgument("--port");
command.addArgument("4723");
command.addArgument("--no-reset");
command.addArgument("--log");
DefaultExecuteResultHandler resultHandler = new DefaultExecuteResultHandler();
DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
executor.setExitValue(1);

Thanks in advance.

Try using

command.addArgument("argument", false);

@Hassan_Radi : Still getting the same error.
I am using Appium version : 1.3.1 (Ophiuchus)

below is my entire code-
public static void main(String[] args) throws ExecuteException, IOException {
CommandLine command = new CommandLine("/bin/sh");
command.addArgument("/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node/bin/node");
command.addArgument("/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node_modules/appium/bin/appium.js");
command.addArgument("--address");
command.addArgument("127.0.0.1");
command.addArgument("--port");
command.addArgument("4723");
command.addArgument("--no-reset");
command.addArgument("--log");
command.addArgument("argument", false);
DefaultExecuteResultHandler resultHandler = new DefaultExecuteResultHandler();
DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
executor.setExitValue(1);
executor.execute(command, resultHandler);
}

I saw this line in your post,
"command.addArgument("/c");"
what does it do exactly ?

By that, I didn't mean adding it explicity ... I meant to convert each line that uses addArgument function and make it take an argument and a false value .

for example:

command.addArgument("--address");

should be

command.addArgument("--address", false);

@Hassan_Radi: LOL !!

But still getting the same error, do you think its because of any device incompatibility ?
Because all I get in searching internet about this is 32-bit vs 64-bit issues only.

OS X : Version 10.8.5
Appium version : 1.3.1 (Ophiuchus)

It might be due to compatibility issues as it's working fine with me...