Element not found in cache - Selenium

Question

I have List of URLs and I just wanted to open the URL on same browser session. To do that I have written the below code but it is throwing the error after opening the first URL i.e. second URL is not being opened.

findElements = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//*[@id='search-user-found']//p/a"));

for (WebElement webElement : findElements) 
{
    Thread.sleep(200);
    System.out.println(webElement.getAttribute("href"));
    driver.navigate().to(webElement.getAttribute("href"));
    Thread.sleep(200);
}

Error:

Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException: Element not found in the cache - perhaps the page has changed since it was looked up

Please assist.

Here's another very good, clear answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16244739/954442 — Andrew Regan, Feb 02 '16 at 18:44

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 02 '16 at 18:23

When you navigate to another page the DOM is changing and the WebDriver is loosing the elements it previously located. That causes the StaleElementReferenceException. I suggest you save the links as strings and use them.

List<WebElement> findElements = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//*[@id='search-user-found']//p/a"));
List<String> hrefs = new List<String>();

for (WebElement webElement : findElements) 
{
    hrefs.add(webElement.getAttribute("href"));
}

for (String href : hrefs) 
{
    Thread.sleep(200);
    System.out.println(href);
    driver.navigate().to(href);
    Thread.sleep(200);
}

Element not found in cache - Selenium

1 Answers1