Selenium WebDriver - IE Driver Running Slow

When you write test automation scripts in selenium and try to execute them on IE/ Internet Explorer browser, you might experience an unusual slowness in your script execution.

We all know that compared to Google Chrome or Firefox, IE is relatively slow. But that is not the usual slowness I'm trying to highlight here. 

Sometimes typing a word inside a textbox can be really slow. You might see like one or two-second delay at each character getting typed.

This is an unexpected slowness that can significantly affect your script execution time.

There can be multiple reasons behind this 

1. Check if you have done the Required Configurations in IE as per the official documentation.

    Here

2. You are using CSS selectors and trying to run your tests in new versions of IE. If you are using CSS 3 selectors, try replacing them with a different type of locator and check.

3. Check if you are taking any screenshots. IE Driver is parsing the entire page DOM to take the screenshots while maximizing the entire window. This leads to slowness in your tests.

4. Use the 32 bit IE Driver instead of 64 bit one whenever possible.

References:

https://support.saucelabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/225255868-Tips-and-Tricks-for-Using-Selenium-with-Internet-Explorer

https://alisterbscott.com/2012/11/13/are-your-ie-webdriver-tests-running-slow-maybe-its-the-screenshots/

http://jimevansmusic.blogspot.com/2013/01/revisiting-native-events-in-ie-driver.html