Interacting with pop-up boxes using selenium in python

Question

I'm trying to use the Selenium module in python to generate a text list from one website, save it in a directory, and browse to that text list on another site to submit it.

I'm working on the script in two parts- 1. Get metadata and 2. Order data. I've successfully completed the script in part 1, except for the very last thing: Choosing to save the metadata file that was just generated. I left it alone to work on part 2, hoping I would stumble upon the answer, but I'm just reaching to same problem when the pop-up to choose file comes along.

In the documentation, I'm told that Selenium WebDriver has built-in support for handling popup dialog boxes and that after triggering a dialog box, if I call alert = driver.switch_to_alert() then I can "accept, dismiss, read its contents, or even type into a prompt."

However, it's not working. When I try alert.text('some text') or alert.send_keys(Keys.TAB), I keep getting the error NoAlertPresentException: Message: No alert is present and after adding the command to wait, I get the error TimeoutException: Message:

Are the popups I'm getting (screenshots attached) not recognized by Selenium? If so, how do I interact with them? It seems like using this to save and/or upload files is something that many people have to do, but I cannot find anything on Google. Specifically, I would like to choose 'Save File' then 'OK' for the first image and for the second I would like to browse to the file (i.e. enter the path into the file name field) and click 'Open.' I don't want to just change my Firefox settings to automatically save because this will eventually be run in a different environment, and that won't help solve my second problem.

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm testing my script on windows but it will eventually be implemented on a linux cloud server. I thought I was going to have to switch to PhantomJS webdriver (which was probably going to make my problem worse) to do headless browsing but I found a way to keep firefox. I guess all this means is that I can't use AutoIT to fix my problem.

Answer 1

The popups you see are not regular popups that can be interacted with using switch_to. These popups are system dialogs and cannot be automated using selenium.

Usually people avoid having these dialogs shown in the first place by tweaking browser preferences, e.g.:

• downloading file using selenium
• Access to file download dialog in Firefox
• How to download a file using Selenium's WebDriver?

For uploading, usually you can find the appropriate input element and send keys to it with a path to the file:

• How to upload file ( picture ) with selenium, python
• How to upload files into file inputs? (python-selenium docs)

^{Let me know if your case cannot be solved by using the answers in the links I've attached.}

---

As for your first, "download file automatically" problem, you just need to set a correct content-type:

profile.set_preference('browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk', "application/xml,text/xml")

Second problem fix (upload part):

driver.find_element_by_name("input_product_list").send_keys(textpath)
driver.find_element_by_name('include_sr').click()
driver.find_element_by_id('submit').click()

Answer 2

Extremely simple implementation using AutoIT.

Below scripts and steps can hely you to click on 'Save>OK' on this window's pop-UP

Step 1: Download AutoIT package/tool here AutoIt You may select ZIP format (extract it)

Step 2: Open any text editor (say notepad) and copy below code and save with extension .au3
(e.g file.au3)

WinWait("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]","", 10)
If WinExists("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]") Then
WinActivate("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]")
Send("{DOWN}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{TAB}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{TAB}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{ENTER}")
EndIf

Step 3: From extracted zip (Step 1) look for folder named: Aut2Exe and open it

Step 4: Click Aut2exe_x64.exe if your OS is 64 bit otherwise click Aut2exe.exe

Step 5: Browse/Locate file created in Step2. (file saved as extension .a3) AND Choose Destination (.exe/.a3x) and select .exe option (say file.exe) AND then Click convert

Step 6: include this file.exe in your project folder and use it as per your requirement using below code (as it is in Eclipse):

driver.dwonload().click(); // it can be something else as per your flow
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:/*path_to_your_EXE_file(selected in step 6))*/file.exe");