Pytest - Altering the outcome based on the exception error raised

Question

I was wondering how I could alter a pytest test outcome (from a fail to a skip) in the case that my error message includes a specific string.

Occasionally we get test failures using appium where the response from the appium server is a 500 error with the failure message: "An unknown server-side error occurred while processing the command." Its an issue that we need to solve, but for the meantime we want to basically say, if the test failed because of an error message similar to that, skip the test instead of failing it.

Ive considered and tried something like this:

def pytest_runtest_setup(item):
    excinfo = None
    try:
        item.obj()
    except Exception as e:
        excinfo = sys.exc_info()
    if excinfo and "An unknown server-side error occurred while processing the command." in str(excinfo[1]):
        pytest.skip("Skipping test due to error message")

And this obviously won't work.

But I was hoping for a similar approach.

The successful answer: In order for me to get this working @Teejay pointed out below I needed to use the runtest_call hook and assess the message there. Currently working well in my test suite!

@pytest.hookimpl(hookwrapper=True)
def pytest_runtest_call(item):
    output = yield
    if output.excinfo:
        for potential_error_message in expected_failure_messages.keys():
            if output._excinfo[1].stacktrace and potential_error_message in output._excinfo[1].stacktrace:
                pytest.skip(reason=expected_failure_messages[potential_error_message])

Answer 1

I recommend utilizing a hook wrapper to inspect the exception raised and act accordingly

@pytest.hookimpl(hookwrapper=True)
def pytest_runtest_setup(item):
    output = yield

    if output.excinfo:
            # Additional logic to target specific error
            pytest.skip()