The Media Center Feature of Download Accelerator Plus is Broken

 

Summary

In this example we are going to perform Function Testing by making sure that the Add function in the Media Center of Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) satisfies users' expectations. DAP v7.0 is a download manager but it also provides a feature called Media Center that can be used to organize data. It is impossible to add .mpg or .avi files to the video section of the Media Center database.

Application Description

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) accelerates the download speed from FTP and HTTP protocols by simultaneously downloading several file segments from the same or different servers. The application enables the user to pause and resume downloads, and to recover from a dropped Internet connection. (Source: www.speedbit.com).

The application also provides a Media Center, which can be used for storing and organizing video and music files. The Scan function can be used to locate files on the users' hard disk and Add can be used to add files to the Media Center database.

Test Design

This example demonstrates the use of Function Testing.

Play

Delete

These are some of the most important functions of the Media Center feature.

For now we will focus on Add Media File(s) and Scan For Media Files functions. We will use them just as normal users would, by adding media files to the Media Center.

The expected result is that the new data will be displayed in the Media Center and the user will be able to access it.

Performing the Test

  1. Start the application. Select the Add function in the Media Center feature. Then locate one or more video files on your hard drive, highlight them, and select Open.

Results/Relevance

The result is that none of the files was added to the database.

Media Center appears to be a large part of the application. Since the most popular video files: .mpg and .avi cannot be added to the user's collection, the whole video section becomes useless. Probably the developers have spent large amount of time coding this feature, so probably they will be interested in spending some more time to make it work.

This was a good example of how a simple function test can reveal easy to spot errors.

Similar Tests/Additional Notes

We can also try to add the files using Scan for media files function. The goal is to find out more about the scope of the problem.

To perform this test, make sure that the "Search in" field contains the name of folder, which has one or more video files. Then click "Scan".

 

The result is that the application scanned the folder which contained 3 files (2 of which were video files) and didn't find anything that can be added to the Media Center.

It appears that either the bug is in the Media Center itself, and not only in the functions that are used for adding files, or both functions have the same error.

The application failed the tests even if the files were specifically downloaded by it.

Configuration

Testing SpeedBit's Download Accelerator Plus v7.0 on:

Created 21 May 2004 for the CSTER

All images and written material ©Copyright Georgi Nikolov 2004

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