This seems to be new in Appium 1.6 but I can’t say for sure. If there is a clickable element such as a button at the start point of a swipe, the swipe action will not complete. The attached logs show three such attempts. The driver taps and holds the button for the defined duration of the swipe, and the screen remains the same. The final swipe action shown in the logs uses a different start_y and is successful.
This issue where you see the driver “failing to swipe” is particular to Appium 1.6.+ and the Appium project is currently working on a solution that should be implemented in the next version of Appium (i.e 1.6.4).
To explain things in more detail:
With the recent changes in automation behavior on iOS 10+ tests, Appium had to find a workaround to automate the “swipe” action using the “drag” and “drop” methods. This solution, as you have experienced is causing the “swipe” action to fail in certain scenarios like the one you are describing here.
The XCTest framework has now provided a native “swipe” method that will allow the user to automate “swiping” as if an actual user was performing the swiping. We are currently working on automating this new “swipe” method in Appium 1.6.4.
If I understand correctly, when you perform the test manually you are not using Appium 1.6.+ to automate the “swipe” action. Instead, you are just manually doing the swipe yourself. Is that correct?
If that is the case, then the root cause of the problem that you are experiencing might be in:
(1) the application that you are testing
(2) the simulator or device that you are using
Thus, the issue that you are experiencing seems to be different than this problem we are seeing with Appium 1.6.+ failing to swipe.