Missing text when using "Terminal Get Text" or "Get Screen Area" activities?

Very strange problem here. We have several robots, all of which are running at version 2018.2.4, that do not retrieve all the text on line 1 of a 5250 terminal emulation screen when the terminal “get text” or “get screen area” is issued… so I built a test process on my local machine to troubleshoot.

The test process was built/run in Studio 2018.2.4. It is using the same terminal emulation, same settings, and even the same IBM ACS HOD emulation session. Same EHLLAPI configurations and settings. No difference. But when the TEST session attempts to retrieve the text using the same activities and parameters, it succeeds.

Here’s the data retrieved when reading the first row of the screen from the test process executed in Studio:

13:47:37.5497 Trace {“message”:" Y1IPACL1 IPA CLAIMS ASSISTANCE MENU #1 4/17/19 ",“level”:“Verbose”,“logType”:“User”,“timeStamp”:“2019-04-17T13:47:37.5497854-04:00”,“fingerprint”:“22a02ec9-98c3-483c-bfc5-aecdf26b2d4f”,“windowsIdentity”:“CGI\tclukay”,“machineName”:“CXVM-NC43”,“processName”:“Desktop”,“processVersion”:“1.0.7046.21238”,“fileName”:“Init Test”,“jobId”:“847dd5f6-5595-4d15-9372-12cadf9570b4”,“robotName”:“Tom Clukay”}

And here’s the result of the same operation when run on the production robot:

08:11:36.2398 Trace {“message”:" IPA CLAIMS ASSISTANCE MENU #1 4/17/19 ",“level”:“Verbose”,“logType”:“User”,“timeStamp”:“2019-04-17T08:11:36.2398996-04:00”,“fingerprint”:“0dc3a543-31ea-49b3-ba2c-ae69b8c761cc”,“windowsIdentity”:“CGI\ROBCL11”,“machineName”:“MPV-APPROB11”,“processName”:“VP_Process_VP”,“processVersion”:“1.0.7045.30982”,“fileName”:“ResetSession”,“jobId”:“a50f0d60-5ec9-48fa-a4c0-e6ad431d9aa7”,“robotName”:“VP02”,“logF_BusinessProcessName”:“IPAProcess”}

You will note in the 2nd case that the “Y1IPACL1” text value, which is in row 1, column 2 of the 5250 display screen, was not retrieved.

Our emulator is IBM Access Client Solutions. The settings are as follows:

Provider: IBM EHLLAPI
Show client application checked
EHLL dll C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\EHLLAPI\pcshll32.dll
EHLL function: hllapi
EHLL session: A
EHLL encoding: [Default]
EHLL enhanced checked
Basic mode unchecked

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I have no idea why this activity would retrieve different results on different bots when processing the same 5250 screen using the same UiPath activity.

We have had the same issue, work around is to go outside the terminal activities en use get text, this works if you can determine the substring of what you want.

Hi @tclukay,

I’m experiencing a similar issue right now. The proposed workaround of using regular Get Text is not working for me.

Were you able to solve this issue or get any more insights?

Thanks,
Lukas