WebDriver wait is not working properly

Question

If you open this link https://www.phptravels.net/ it shows a progress bar kind of thing and then you will see the Hotels option on the top right corner. I have tried implicit wait, WebDriverWait and fluent wait as well. when I used element.isDisplayed() it shows "true" but when I perform click operation it throws below exception.

    driver.manage().window().maximize();
        driver.get("https://www.phptravels.net/");

        String hotelsXpth = "//ul[@class='main-menu go-left RTL']/li/a/span[contains(text(),'Hotels')]";


         WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 20);
         wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath
         (hotelsXpth)));
         wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.xpath(
         hotelsXpth)));

         System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.xpath(hotelsXpth)).isDisplayed());
         driver.findElement(By.xpath(hotelsXpth)).click();

Exception

    org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: Element <span>...
 </span> is not clickable at point (705, 130). Other element would receive 
 the click: <div id="preloader" class="loader-wrapper">...</div>
  (Session info: chrome=63.0.3239.132)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.33.506120 
(e3e53437346286c0bc2d2dc9aa4915ba81d9023f),platform=Windows NT 10.0.14393 
x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 0 milliseconds
Build info: version: '3.8.1', revision: '6e95a6684b', time: '2017-12-
01T18:33:54.468Z'
System info: host: 'D-113060768', ip: '10.149.34.102', os.name: 'Windows             
10', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '10.0', java.version: '1.8.0_121'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
Capabilities {acceptSslCerts: true, applicationCacheEnabled: false, 
browserConnectionEnabled: false, browserName: chrome, chrome: 
{chromedriverVersion: 2.33.506120 (e3e53437346286..., userDataDir: 
C:\Users\AS337139\AppData\L...}, cssSelectorsEnabled: true, databaseEnabled: 
false, handlesAlerts: true, hasTouchScreen: false, javascriptEnabled: true, 
locationContextEnabled: true, mobileEmulationEnabled: false, nativeEvents: 
true, networkConnectionEnabled: false, pageLoadStrategy: normal, platform: 
XP, platformName: XP, rotatable: false, setWindowRect: true, 
takesHeapSnapshot: true, takesScreenshot: true, unexpectedAlertBehaviour: , 
unhandledPromptBehavior: , version: 63.0.3239.132, webStorageEnabled: true}
Session ID: bbfef8e4da0b2a6b98181d54c454d504
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown 
Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source)

Any suggestions?

Possible duplicate of [Getting Element is not clickable exception while click on a menu link](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41632230/getting-element-is-not-clickable-exception-while-click-on-a-menu-link) — Andersson, Feb 15 '18 at 15:41
Following link deals with your questions: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11908249/debugging-element-is-not-clickable-at-point-error — Vaibhav, Feb 15 '18 at 15:45
@Ashraf Mulla , try to implement solution from [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41632230/getting-element-is-not-clickable-exception-while-click-on-a-menu-link/41632565#41632565), just use `wait.until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("preloader")));` instead — Andersson, Feb 15 '18 at 15:50
Its not the problem with `wait` , problem is with your `xpath` — Pradeep hebbar, Feb 15 '18 at 15:51
Possible duplicate of [Selenium Web Driver & Java. Element is not clickable at point (36, 72). Other element would receive the click:](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44912203/selenium-web-driver-java-element-is-not-clickable-at-point-36-72-other-el) — undetected Selenium, Feb 15 '18 at 15:58

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 15 '18 at 16:20

The problem is that Selenium knows that the Hotels link is visible, even if it's behind the "Loading..." panel. So your attempts to wait for the Hotels link to be visible, clickable, etc. will immediately pass and it will attempt the click resulting in the Exception you are seeing.

The fix is to wait for the Loading panel to close and THEN click your button. To do that, you just have to get a locator for the Loading panel and wait for it to be invisible.

Since I'm assuming you will be clicking the Hotel menu (and probably other menus) frequently, I would write a function that takes care of that for you.

public static void clickMenu(String menu)
{
    driver.findElement(By.xpath("//nav[@id='offcanvas-menu']//span[contains(.,'" + menu + "')]")).click();
}

The script itself would look like

new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("preloader"))); // wait for Loading panel to close
clickMenu("Hotels");

I would even probably suggest that since you will likely reuse the code to wait for the Loading panel to close that you put that into a function also. I'll leave that as a exercise for the reader... :)

This doesn't answers the question. OP's is unable to get past the splash screen of https://www.phptravels.net/ and needs help there. Your answer is all based on **clicking the Hotel menu (and probably other menus) frequently** and doesn't try to address the real issue. — undetected Selenium, Feb 15 '18 at 19:58
@DebanjanB If you read my answer carefully, you would see in the second paragraph I answered the question. It's only two sentences. AND... the first line in the second block of code addresses the wait. This is tested code and it worked. — JeffC, Feb 15 '18 at 20:18
@DebanjanB I addressed your comment and you haven't undone your downvote... why? — JeffC, Feb 15 '18 at 21:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 15 '18 at 15:57

I wrote this for a local project that used a shielding method by placing invisible WebElements on the page to block user input. These elements would remain while the page is "busy" and go away when it's ready to accept input. Modify the code below to check for class "preloader" instead of "blockUI" and it should work for you.

public static void waitForBlockUIToDisappear() {
    // This function checks the entire currently-loaded web page for the
    // presence of any web element of the
    // class "blockUI" and loops until there are none. The presence of an
    // element with this class does exactly
    // what it implies: it blocks user input. If you get the error that a
    // different web element would receive
    // the click, for example, this is why and you'd need to call this
    // method before doing a click. Generally,
    // this function should be implemented before sending any input to a web
    // page - click, sendkeys, select...
    String blockUI = "//*[contains(@class,'blockUI')]";
    while (true) {
        if (driver.findElements(By.xpath(blockUI)).size() == 0)
            break;
    }
    ;
}

It would be better if you passed in the locator to be waited for instead of hardcoding it in the function. That way it's completely flexible/reusable. — JeffC, Feb 15 '18 at 16:15
I agree. I did think about that when I referenced the code. At the time, that particular project only ever had that one class of blocker. They were all variations of class names but they all had "blockUI" in common, hence the contains usage. Since the app it was written for only ever used the one class, it made it simpler for the test coder to not have to know the name of the class that was blocking the page(s) but I'm sure there would be scenarios where passing the class name would be beneficial, perhaps as an overloaded version. — Bill Hileman, Feb 15 '18 at 16:40

WebDriver wait is not working properly

2 Answers2