Unable to enter chars in the textfield using selenium sendKeys

Question

I am trying enter characters into text field, however its not working. Below I mentioned 2 pieces of code. JS is not working at all. Where as in the first piece of code click is working but not other steps. Xpath is correct as click is working on that.

    util.driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@id='input-1']")).click();
    util.driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@id='input-1']")).clear();
    util.driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@id='input-1']")).sendKeys("hjgfjg");

JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) util.driver;

js.executeScript("document.getElementByXpath('//input[@id='input-1']').value = 'TEST')");

post the markup and any scripts that run on that form. Sometimes it can be an overly complicated script that isn't keeping up with the typing. (Slowing down the typing can help if that's the case...) — pcalkins, Oct 02 '19 at 21:41
Provided element html. BTW I tried to wait 5 seconds before and after entering one char and still I do not see its entering. — kps, Oct 02 '19 at 21:46
try without the click or the clear... neither should be needed. — pcalkins, Oct 02 '19 at 21:56
post the full markup... could be an iframe or the lack of a WebDriverWait or something like that. Are you seeing any exceptions? — pcalkins, Oct 02 '19 at 22:39
Can you type some text in textfield manually and post html code ? — Yun, Oct 03 '19 at 02:31

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 07 '19 at 08:21

The desired element is a dynamic element so to invoke sendKeys() on the element you have to induce WebDriverWait for the elementToBeClickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

cssSelector:

new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("input.slds-input[id^='input-'][aria-describedby^='help-message-']"))).sendKeys("hjgfjg");

xpath:

new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath("//input[@class='slds-input' and starts-with(@id, 'input-')][starts-with(@aria-describedby, 'help-message-')]"))).sendKeys("hjgfjg");

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 03 '19 at 03:25

Try use Actions:

WebElement input = util.driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@id='input-1']"));
Actions action = new Actions(util.driver);
action.moveToElement(input).click().sendKeys("test").build().perform();

Following import:

import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions;

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 03 '19 at 10:15

Probably you can try below workarounds:

Try clicking on the textbox first and then call sendKeys().
Angular can't process input events when they arrive too fast. As a workaround, you would need to send single characters with a small delay between each.

Selenium sendKeys are not sending all characters

You can try using Actions class.

Unable to enter chars in the textfield using selenium sendKeys

3 Answers3