Python +Selenium can't find element to send key

Question

I already deal with it for many days having no idea how to solve it...

That is the element I want to get by selenium

<input name="QUICKSEARCH_STRING" id="QUICKSEARCH_STRING" onfocus="setTimeout('focusSearchElem()', 100);" type="text" value="">

They all pop out the warning like this one

===> Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"css selector","selector":"[name="QUICKSEARCH_STRING"]"} (Session info: chrome=79.0.3945.88)

It is my code:

import selenium.webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains

my_driver = selenium.webdriver.Chrome()
account_box=my_driver.find_element_by_id('j_username')
account_box.send_keys('my_user_name')

#### I tried many ways to get the element####  

#way 1(get the elemnt by full xpath):
my_driver.implicitly_wait(10)
PlmSearchBox=my_driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[5]/div[3]/form/div/div[3]/input") #doesn't work
#

#way 2(get the element by name):
my_driver.implicitly_wait(10)
PlmSearchBox=my_driver.find_element_by_name('QUICKSEARCH_STRING') #doesn't work
#

#way 3(get the element by xpath):
my_driver.implicitly_wait(10)
PlmSearchBox=my_driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="QUICKSEARCH_STRING"]') #doesn't work
#

#way 4(get the element by id):
my_driver.implicitly_wait(10)
PlmSearchBox=my_driver.find_element_by_id('QUICKSEARCH_STRING') #doesn't work
#

#way 5(get the element by using explicit wait):
PlmSearchBox=wait.until(selenium.webdriver.support.expected_conditions.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, "QUICKSEARCH_STRING")))  #doesn't work
#

PlmSearchBox.send_keys('93-55520-300E')
#############################################

And after trying those ways and failed, I noticed that the cursor is blinking in the input box which I want to send the key to.

So I use

ActionChains

PlmSearchBox = ActionChains(my_driver)
PlmSearchBox.send_keys('93-55520-300E')
PlmSearchBox.perform()

There isn't any error message poping out, but the input box still remains blank.

switch_to.active_element

PlmSearchBox=my_driver.switch_to.active_element
PlmSearchBox.clear
PlmSearchBox.send_keys('93-55520-300E')

The result is as same as ActionChains.

I will really appreciate that someone tells me what's wrong with my code.

Answer 1

As your usecase is to send a character sequence, so instead of using presence_of_element_located() you have to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and and you can use either of the following Locator Strategy:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input#QUICKSEARCH_STRING[name='QUICKSEARCH_STRING'][onfocus*='focusSearchElem']"))).send_keys("93-55520-300E")
  

• Using XPATH:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//input[@id='QUICKSEARCH_STRING' and @name='QUICKSEARCH_STRING'][contains(@onfocus, 'focusSearchElem']"))).send_keys("93-55520-300E")
  

• 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