In software testing

Software testing

Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software...

, recovery testing is the activity of testing how well an application

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 is able to recover from crashes

Crash (computing)

A crash in computing is a condition where a computer or a program, either an application or part of the operating system, ceases to function properly, often exiting after encountering errors. Often the offending program may appear to freeze or hang until a crash reporting service documents...

, hardware failures and other similar problems.

Recovery testing is the forced failure of the software in a variety of ways to verify that recovery is
properly performed. Recovery testing should not be confused with reliability testing, which tries to discover the specific point at which failure occurs.Recovery testing is basically done in order to check how fast and better the application can recover against any type of crash or hardware failure etc. Type or extent of recovery is specified in the requirement specifications. It is basically testing how well a system recovers from crashes, hardware failures, or other catastrophic problems
Examples of recovery testing:

1. While an application is running, suddenly restart the computer, and afterwards check the validness of the application's data integrity.
2. While an application is receiving data from a network
   Computer network
   A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
   
   , unplug the connecting cable. After some time, plug the cable back in and analyze the application's ability to continue receiving data from the point at which the network connection disappeared.
3. Restart the system while a browser
   Web browser
   A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
   
    has a definite number of sessions. Afterwards, check that the browser
   Web browser
   A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
   
   is able to recover all of them.