Develop Reference

How To avoid stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document when I use a command to change the paage

I have a problem using Ecplise. When I use a command to do something that drives me into another page. For example if I do commands that do not require to change the page it works fine. But when I do one that changes the page, it works, but after that it stops and I get that error. So, there is a portion of the code. After the third command which implies going to another page, the next 2 commands don't work.
driver.get("https://mathaus.ro");
driver.manage().window().maximize();
driver.findElement(By.id("Constructii10NavNode")).click();
driver.findElement(By.id("changeLocationReference")).click();
driver.findElement(By.className("close-modal")).click();

I think you need Explicit waits :
Code :
driver.manage().window().maximize();
driver.get("https://mathaus.ro");
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("Constructii10NavNode"))).click();
Thread.sleep(3000);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("changeLocationReference"))).click();
Thread.sleep(3000);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("div.close-modal"))).click();
Thread.sleep(3000);
PS : Thread.sleep(3000); is just for visualization purpose. You can remove that. It's not really required

Selenium Gmail login password field

I am trying to login Gmail using selenium web driver. The problem I am facing is that I am not able to set the password in the input box.
Here is the generated error message:
Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: cannot focus element.
Here is my code:
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\chromedriver.exe");
WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
driver.navigate().to("http://www.gmail.com");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#identifierId")).sendKeys("********#gmail.com");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#identifierNext")).click();
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.cssSelector("#password")));
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#password")).sendKeys("********");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#passwordNext")).click();
driver.close();
driver.quit();
}

Wait until an element becomes clickable. Here is how you can do this.
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]"));
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")).sendKeys("your password");

This could be a combination of a wait issue and selecting the wrong element.
Try changing your selector in your sendKeys as follows:
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")).sendKeys("********");
If that still doesn't work, you could try a different wait condition before that call, such as:
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")));
You might need to do some experiments to find the right wait condition, but doing both of those things should get you what you need. :)

The cssSelector of the element you are trying to use is not right.
I would suggest to use dynamically generated xpath and/or cssSelector all the time.
In the code below, I used dynamically generated xpath for email Id and cssSelector for password. Try this and it works fine.
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "Y:\\Selenium\\chromedriver.exe");
WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
driver.navigate().to("http://www.gmail.com");
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[#type='email']")).sendKeys("*********#gmail.com");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#identifierNext")).click();
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")));
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")).sendKeys("*********");
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#passwordNext")).click();
driver.quit();
}

You can also use the name atribute here, like this:
driver.findElement(By.name("password")).sendKeys("********");
I think everything is solved, however I would like to clarify why it was not working:
To enter the email, You used an id and it worked fine, because the id identifierId is one of the attribute of the filed you are filling.
To enter the password, you cannot use password as an id because the field you are trying to fill has no id among its attributes. The id password exists, but it embraces a larger amount of WebElement. In fact you are localizing an id which contains this field among other WebElements, hence the error message telling you it is unable to focus
you can either use xpath, such as
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[#type='password']")).sendKeys("********");
or css selector such as:
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[type=password]")).sendKeys("********");
but you cannot access this field using an ID.
I tried all those three solutions and they worked.
Regarding the possible waiting issue, do not hesitate to use wrappers with waiter around findElement method, it can help a lot. However, I think it was not the main issue here.

element not interactable exception in selenium web automation

In the below code i cannot send password keys in the password field, i tried clicking the field, clearing the field and sending the keys. But now working in any of the method. But its working if i debug and test
public class TestMail {
protected static WebDriver driver;
protected static String result;
#BeforeClass
public static void setup() {
System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","D:\\geckodriver.exe");
driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}
#Test
void Testcase1() {
driver.get("http://mail.google.com");
WebElement loginfield = driver.findElement(By.name("Email"));
if(loginfield.isDisplayed()){
loginfield.sendKeys("ragesh#gmail.in");
}
else{
WebElement newloginfield = driver.findElemnt(By.cssSelector("#identifierId"));
newloginfield.sendKeys("ragesh#gmail.in");
// System.out.println("This is new login");
}
driver.findElement(By.name("signIn")).click();
// driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(".RveJvd")).click();
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(15, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
// WebElement pwd = driver.findElement(By.name("Passwd"));
WebElement pwd = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#Passwd"));
pwd.click();
pwd.clear();
// pwd.sendKeys("123");
if(pwd.isEnabled()){
pwd.sendKeys("123");
}
else{
System.out.println("Not Enabled");
}

Try setting an implicit wait of maybe 10 seconds.
gmail.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
Or set an explicit wait. An explicit waits is code you define to wait for a certain condition to occur before proceeding further in the code. In your case, it is the visibility of the password input field. (Thanks to ainlolcat's comment)
WebDriver gmail= new ChromeDriver();
gmail.get("https://www.gmail.co.in");
gmail.findElement(By.id("Email")).sendKeys("abcd");
gmail.findElement(By.id("next")).click();
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(gmail, 10);
WebElement element = wait.until(
ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("Passwd")));
gmail.findElement(By.id("Passwd")).sendKeys("xyz");
Explanation: The reason selenium can't find the element is because the id of the password input field is initially Passwd-hidden. After you click on the "Next" button, Google first verifies the email address entered and then shows the password input field (by changing the id from Passwd-hidden to Passwd). So, when the password field is still hidden (i.e. Google is still verifying the email id), your webdriver starts searching for the password input field with id Passwd which is still hidden. And hence, an exception is thrown.

"element not interactable" error can mean two things :
a. Element has not properly rendered:
Solution for this is just to use implicit /explicit wait
Implicit wait :
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(50, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
Explicit wait :
WebDriverWait wait=new WebDriverWait(driver, 20);
element1 = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.className("fa-stack-1x")));
b. Element has rendered but it is not in the visible part of the screen:
Solution is just to scroll till the element. Based on the version of Selenium it can be handled in different ways but I will provide a solution that works in all versions :
JavascriptExecutor executor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
executor.executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", element1);
Suppose all this fails then another way is to again make use of Javascript executor as following :
executor.executeScript("arguments[0].click();", element1);
If you still can't click , then it could again mean two things :
1. Iframe
Check the DOM to see if the element you are inspecting lives in any frame. If that is true then you would need to switch to this frame before attempting any operation.
driver.switchTo().frame("a077aa5e"); //switching the frame by ID
System.out.println("********We are switching to the iframe*******");
driver.findElement(By.xpath("html/body/a/img")).click();
2. New tab
If a new tab has opened up and the element exists on it then you again need to code something like below to switch to it before attempting operation.
String parent = driver.getWindowHandle();
driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText("Continue")).click();
Set<String> s = driver.getWindowHandles();
// Now iterate using Iterator
Iterator<String> I1 = s.iterator();
while (I1.hasNext()) {
String child_window = I1.next();
if (!parent.equals(child_window)) {
driver.switchTo().window(child_window);
element1.click()
}

Please try selecting the password field like this.
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
WebElement passwordElement = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("#Passwd")));
passwordElement.click();
passwordElement.clear();
passwordElement.sendKeys("123");

you may also try full xpath, I had a similar issue where I had to click on an element which has a property javascript onclick function. the full xpath method worked and no interactable exception was thrown.

In my case the element that generated the Exception was a button belonging to a form. I replaced
WebElement btnLogin = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("button"));
btnLogin.click();
with
btnLogin.submit();
My environment was chromedriver windows 10

In my case, I'm using python-selenium.
I have two instructions. The second instruction wasn't able to execute.
I put a time.sleep(1) between two instructions and I'm done.
If you want you can change the sleep amount according to your need.

I had the same problem and then figured out the cause. I was trying to type in a span tag instead of an input tag. My XPath was written with a span tag, which was a wrong thing to do. I reviewed the Html for the element and found the problem. All I then did was to find the input tag which happens to be a child element. You can only type in an input field if your XPath is created with an input tagname

I'm going to hedge this answer with this: I know it's crap.. and there's got to be a better way. (See above answers) But I tried all the suggestions here and still got nill. Ended up chasing errors, ripping the code to bits. Then I tried this:
import keyboard
keyboard.press_and_release('tab')
keyboard.press_and_release('tab')
keyboard.press_and_release('tab') #repeat as needed
keyboard.press_and_release('space')
It's pretty insufferable and you've got to make sure that you don't lose focus otherwise you'll just be tabbing and spacing on the wrong thing.
My assumption on why the other methods didn't work for me is that I'm trying to click on something the developers didn't want a bot clicking on. So I'm not clicking on it!

I got this error because I was using a wrong CSS selector with the Selenium WebDriver Node.js function By.css().
You can check if your selector is correct by using it in the web console of your web browser (Ctrl+Shift+K shortcut), with the JavaScript function document.querySelectorAll().

If it's working in the debug, then wait must be the proper solution.
I will suggest to use the explicit wait, as given below:
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(new ChromeDriver(), 5);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.cssSelector("#Passwd")));

I came across this error too. I thought it might have been because the field was not visible. I tried the scroll solution above and although the field became visible in the controlled browser session I still got the exception. The solution I am committing looks similar to below. It looks like the event can bubble to the contained input field and the end result is the Selected property becomes true.
The field appears in my page something like this.
<label>
<input name="generic" type="checkbox" ... >
<label>
The generic working code looks more or less like this:
var checkbox = driver.FindElement(By.Name("generic"), mustBeVisible: false);
checkbox.Selected.Should().BeFalse();
var label = checkbox.FindElement(By.XPath(".."));
label.Click();
checkbox.Selected.Should().BeTrue();
You'll need to translate this to your specific language. I'm using C# and FluentAssertions. This solution worked for me with Chrome 94 and Selenium 3.141.0.

I had to hover over the element first for the sub-elements to appear. I didn't take that into account at first.
WebElement boardMenu = this.driver.findElement(By.linkText(boardTitle));
Actions action = new Actions(this.driver);
action.moveToElement(boardMenu).perform();
Another tip is to check that you are having one element of that DOM. Try using Ctrl+F when inspecting the web page and check your xpath there; it should return one element if you are going with the findElement method.

Selenium class name not found from the example

I found this selenium automation code on stackoverflow.
I was trying to run the program. It gives an error:
Unable to locate element: {"method":"class name","selector":"gssb_e"}
I inspected some web elements on that page to see if I will find the class name gssb_e. But I did not find any. I want to modify or update the class name but I am not sure what webelement the example is trying access. can you please help.
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
// Go to the Google Suggest home page
driver.get("http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en");
// Enter the query string "Cheese"
WebElement query = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
query.sendKeys("Cheese");
// Sleep until the div we want is visible or 5 seconds is over
long end = System.currentTimeMillis() + 5000;
while (System.currentTimeMillis() < end) {
WebElement resultsDiv = driver.findElement(By.className("gssb_e"));
// If results have been returned, the results are displayed in a drop down.
if (resultsDiv.isDisplayed()) {
break;
}
}

TL;DR: Use better location strategies and explicit waits.
I don't see an element with gssb_e class name when I do the same manually.
Instead, in this intentionally created "mess", I would try sticking to the more reliable things. For instance, if we are trying to wait until the results would appear, I would, for example, explicitly wait for the element with id="search" to become visible:
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, timeOut);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("search")));
In other words, comparing to the gssb_e class name that you were using, there are so many more reliable, more logical and simpler things on the Google Search Results page that can tell you the results are ready and visible.

Selenium Webdriver element identification

Hi I am new to Selenium Webdriver.
I have taken this website and I am trying to click on the Register Link. I have written the following code.
driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
driver.get("http://www.stepintohealth.qa");
driver.findElement(By.linkText("Register")).click();
while executing the code it is throwing element not found exception. i have tried same in seleniunm IDE it works without any issue. I have verified for the iframes also, but Register link is not in iframes.

Welcome to the world of Selenium. It is often the element wait/find issue that you are facing. I added explicit wait to make sure the element is there before you perform the click.
driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.get("http://www.stepintohealth.qa");
By byCss = By.cssSelector(".right1.navmenu a.register");
WebElement myDynamicElement = (new WebDriverWait(driver, 10)).until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(byCss ));
myDynamicElement.click();
Couple of things to keep in mind:
You don't want to mix the implicit and explicit waits together since that can be a performance issue. It is not recommended.
Selector is very important in finding the element uniquely. I tend to avoid LinkText as much as I can. id should be your first choice always. Try using name,clasName,cssSelector,xpath if you can. In this case className did not work pretty good. Tested with cssSelector and did what it supposed to do. See this for more info.