Unable to locate element - multiple element seem to have similar and minimal info and I can't find either correctly

Question

I am trying to extract some attributes from an element on a website but I am getting Unable to find element error. The element doesn't have much info in it to search, apart from the attributes, and the one that I want will change every time.

I was initially converting the HTML to text and then regex searching the text to get what I want. Now I'm trying to make it a bit more elegant.

I have tried: browser.find_element_by_name("Status")

• to search text attribute (I know this is wrong) browser.find_element_by_xpath("//label[@class='copySource']")

• and a bunch of other variations browser.find_element_by_xpath("//element[@attribute='Device Status:']")

plus some other stuff.

using this, with find all elements, returned a blank list without an error. browser.find_elements_by_xpath("//span[@class='class']")

The code I am trying to search:

<td>
    <label class="copySource">Device Registration Status:</label>
</td>
<tr>
    <td>
        <label class="copySource">Device Status:</label>
    </td>
    <td>
        <span class="copySource copyEndLine">operational</span>
    </td>
</tr>

I am trying to extract the attribute in the last element, the word "operational" (this word changes). Getting error (or something similar to):

NoSuchElementException: no such element: Unable to locate element: 
{"method":"xpath","selector":"//element[@attribute='Device Status:']"}

Answer 1

Try with

browser.find_element_by_css_selector(".copyEndLine").text

You might try to add a wait condition before getting the text of the element, something like "wait for element present" because maybe it is not yet loaded when you are interacting with it.

Answer 2

To extract the text operational you have to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_element_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• cssSelector:

  print(WebDriverWait(browser, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "tr td>span.copySource copyEndLine"))).get_attribute("innerHTML"))
  

• xpath:

  print(WebDriverWait(browser, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//label[@class='copySource' and text()='Device Status:']//following::td[1]/span[@class='copySource copyEndLine']"))).get_attribute("innerHTML"))
  

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  

Answer 3

Usually this happens, when there are components with similar name/tags.

Can you try: browser.find_elements_by_xpath("//span[@class='class']")[0] or any other index; based on the count of similar components on the page.

Also if you could share the url of page you are trying, it would be helpful.

Answer 4

The relevant XPath expression would be something like:

//label[text()='Device Status:']/ancestor::tr/descendant::*[contains(@class,'EndLine')]

where:

• ancestor::tr - selects the relevant table tr tag which is the ancestor for the current element
• descendant::*[contains(@class,'EndLine')] - looks for a descendant (child or grandchild) which class attribute contains EndLine via XPath contains() function

Demo:

Answer 5

You can try this:

browser.find_elements_by_cssselector(".copySource.copyEndLine")

If the element is inside a frame you have to switch to the frame, you can use this:

driver.switchTo().frame("FrameName");