selenium StaleElementReferenceException: element is not attached to the page document error in python

Question

I am trying to visit a series of webpages and recursively. Visit one page and then back then move to next page and so on. With my code, I can visit the first page and then back to the previous page, but I can not visit the next page and get an stale element reference error. I read through the answers regarding this error, but still don't get where my code changed the status...

Below is my code

"""Get the browser (a "driver")."""
# find the path with 'which chromedriver'
path_to_chromedriver = ('/Users/xxxx/Desktop/chromedriver')
browser = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=path_to_chromedriver)

url = "http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/index_docs.php"
browser.get(url)
#time.sleep(600) 

# 2008 Presidential Election
pe_2008 = browser.find_element_by_xpath(
"/html/body/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/ul/li[22]/ul/li[5]/a")

# 2012 Presidential Election
pe_2012 = browser.find_element_by_xpath(
 "/html/body/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/ul/li[22]/ul/li[6]/a")

# 2016 Presidential Election
pe_2016 = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/ul/li[22]/ul/li[7]/a")

pe_2016.click()

links = browser.find_elements_by_partial_link_text('campaign')

for i in range(len(links)):
    links[i].click()
    time.sleep(5)
    elems = browser.find_elements_by_xpath("//a[@href]")
    linkls = []
    for elem in elems:
        address = elem.get_attribute("href")
        if 'http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/' in address:
            linkls.append(elem)
    try:
        k = len(linkls)
        for j in range(k):
            linkls[j].click()
            time.sleep(5)
            browser.back()
            time.sleep(5)
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)


Video Transcript: Presidential Exploratory Committee Announcement
Message: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document
  (Session info: chrome=63.0.3239.132)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.35.528157     (4429ca2590d6988c0745c24c8858745aaaec01ef),platform=Mac OS X 10.12.6 x86_64)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
StaleElementReferenceException            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-255-edb48028a541> in <module>()
      1 for i in range(len(links)):
----> 2     links[i].click()
      3     time.sleep(5)
      4     elems = browser.find_elements_by_xpath("//a[@href]")
      5     linkls = []

/Users/misun/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-    packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py in click(self)
     78     def click(self):
     79         """Clicks the element."""
---> 80         self._execute(Command.CLICK_ELEMENT)
     81 
     82     def submit(self):

/Users/misun/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-    packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py in _execute(self, command,     params)
    626             params = {}
    627         params['id'] = self._id
--> 628         return self._parent.execute(command, params)
    629 
    630     def find_element(self, by=By.ID, value=None):

/Users/misun/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-    packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py in execute(self, driver_command,     params)
    310         response = self.command_executor.execute(driver_command, params)
    311         if response:
--> 312             self.error_handler.check_response(response)
    313             response['value'] = self._unwrap_value(
    314                 response.get('value', None))

/Users/misun/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-        packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py in check_response(self, response)
    235         elif exception_class == UnexpectedAlertPresentException and 'alert' in value:
    236             raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace, value['alert'].get('text'))
--> 237         raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
    238 
    239     def _value_or_default(self, obj, key, default):

StaleElementReferenceException: Message: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document
  (Session info: chrome=63.0.3239.132)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.35.528157     (4429ca2590d6988c0745c24c8858745aaaec01ef),platform=Mac OS X 10.12.6 x86_64)

Where is the stale element exception being thrown? You have some redundant spaces within the `tbody` part of the xpath — GalAbra, Jan 20 '18 at 23:44
Possible duplicate of [StaleElementReferenceException when trying to click on the links in a loop](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48293590/staleelementreferenceexception-when-trying-to-click-on-the-links-in-a-loop) — undetected Selenium, Jan 21 '18 at 12:20

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 20 '18 at 23:59

When you go to a new page, all of the elements from the previous page will have been destroyed / made stale. You will have to re-fetch the list of elements every time you go back to the starting page.

The best solution might be to find all of the elements, and the iterate over them only to pull out the URLs. Then, you can iterate over the list of urls rather than the list of elements.

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '18 at 13:20

1) Look into my answer in another post to help you well understand the reason for StaleReferenceException.

2) I did some changes on your code, you can try it:

# 2012 Presidential Election
pe_2012 = browser.find_element_by_link_text("2012 Election")

# 2016 Presidential Election
pe_2016 = browser.find_element_by_link_text("2016 Election")

pe_2016.click()

candidates = browser.find_element_by_link_text("campaign speeches")

for i in range(len(candidates)):
    candidates[i].click()
    time.sleep(5)

    speeches = browser.find_elements_by_css_selector("td.listdate > a")
    speeche_count = len(linkls)

    // Begin click each speech link of one candidate

    try:

        for j in range(speeche_count):
            // click on one speeche link
            speeches[j].click()
            time.sleep(5)
            // back to previous page
            browser.back()
            time.sleep(5)

            // find speeches again to avoid StaleReferenceException
            speeches = browser.find_elements_by_css_selector("td.listdate > a")

    except Exception as e:
        print(e)

    // End click each speech link of one candidate

    // back to candidates list page to enter next candidate speech list page
    browser.back()
    time.sleep(5)

    // find candidates again to avoid StaleReferenceException
    candidates = browser.find_element_by_link_text("campaign speeches")

selenium StaleElementReferenceException: element is not attached to the page document error in python

2 Answers2