XPath failing to select element

Question

Can someone give a better xpath of this div element, or help explain why I cannot seem to select the desired div?

This XPath does not work:

//div[starts-with(normalize-space(.),'Welcome to the Shipt Shopper') and @class='text']

Even though it gets highlighted in chrome developer tool, NoSuchElementException is thrown.

This is the case with all elements on the page

A snippet of the HTML from the page with the content that I am trying to target:

<div class="content-wrapper">
    <div class="content" style="padding-top: 116px;">                               
        <div class="media">         
          <div class="attachment" data-attachment="{&quot;image&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/images.typeform.com\/images\/29rsVwT3VF\/image\/default#.png&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:360,&quot;height&quot;:137,&quot;video_source&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;video_id&quot;:&quot;&quot;}" style="width: 360px; height: 137px;">
<img src="https://images.typeform.com/images/29rsVwT3VF/image/default#.png" data-original="https://images.typeform.com/images/29rsVwT3VF/image/default#.png" style="width: 360px; height: 137px; display: inline;">
  </div>
</div>                      
        <div class="text" style="padding-top: 30px; margin-left: 0px;">
                                                    Welcome to the Shipt Shopper application! <br><br>Ready to get started?

        </div>
        <div class="button-wrapper" style="margin-top: 30px;">
          <div class="button general full enabled hover-effect" style="">Begin</div>
        <div class="button-text">press <strong>ENTER</strong></div>
      </div>                    
    </div>
</div>

...Yes, I'm asking if that section of HTML injected into the DOM by some external event, like a button click or popup. — Obsidian Age, Feb 26 '18 at 01:18
If would be helpful if you posted the snippet of HTML, not just a screenshot from the developer tool. For instance, we could more easily determine whether the quotes part of the text. — Mads Hansen, Feb 26 '18 at 02:31
Possible duplicate of [How to handle iframe in Selenium WebDriver using java](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9942928/how-to-handle-iframe-in-selenium-webdriver-using-java) — JeffC, Feb 26 '18 at 03:39
@SharonJones You will need to wait for the iframe to complete loading. Use the frameToBeAvailableAndSwitchToIt(String frameLocator) expected condition which will switch to the iframe automatically. Then use the query to find the welcome text. https://seleniumhq.github.io/selenium/docs/api/java/org/openqa/selenium/support/ui/ExpectedConditions.html#frameToBeAvailableAndSwitchToIt-java.lang.String- — Grasshopper, Feb 26 '18 at 04:17

Mads Hansen · Answer 1 · 2018-02-26T03:54:53.423

1

The content that you are targeting is inside of an <iframe>.

I'm not familiar with how to configure Selenium, but it looks as if you may need to switch to that frame. Since it does not have an @id you may need to select by position:

driver.switchTo().frame(0)

and then execute the XPath.

When you are done, jump back to the containing HTML page:

driver.switchTo().defaultContent();

edited Feb 26 '18 at 03:54

answered Feb 26 '18 at 02:34

Mads Hansen

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didnt help... same NoSuchElementException – Sharon Jones Feb 26 '18 at 03:04
Your XPath looks good, I think the problem is due to iframes. Either need to switch context and/or as @Grasshopper suggests, wait until it has loaded. – Mads Hansen Feb 26 '18 at 04:37
didnt realise its a frame. let me try switching to frame – Sharon Jones Feb 26 '18 at 07:07

undetected Selenium · Answer 2 · 2018-02-26T05:53:18.230

As per the HTML you have shared the xpath which you have used is a valid one and is correct. But NoSuchElementException will be thrown when you will try to interact with it through Selenium.

To interact with the element through Selenium you can use the following xpath :

//div[@class='content-wrapper']/div[@class='content']//div[@class='text' and contains(normalize-space(), 'Welcome to the Shipt Shopper application')]

But looking at the HTML it seems your have to induce WebDriverWait for the element to be visible as follows :

WebElement welcomeShiptShopper = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//div[@class='content-wrapper']/div[@class='content']//div[@class='text' and contains(normalize-space(), 'Welcome to the Shipt Shopper application')]")));

The webpage doesn't opens at my end. As other's have indicated, the WebElement might be within <iframe> tag, in that case you have to switch to the appropiate iframe first using either of the following methods first :

Switch through Frame Name
```
driver.switchTo().frame("frame_name");
```
Switch through Frame ID
```
driver.switchTo().frame("frame_id");
```
Switch through Frame Index
```
driver.switchTo().frame(1);
```

Once you switch to the appropiate frame, now you can lookout for the WebElement with the suggested xpaths mentioned above.

XPath failing to select element

2 Answers2