Python Selenium a hidden frame that appears sometimes with java script assert

Question

I have a notification that appears in a couple of times a week on this website I scrape. And I can't get around it.

I can run the code.

el =  driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@id='btnRead']")
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", el)

Which clears it, but if I leave it in my code it gives me a no such element exception. Event if I try to wrap it in try/catch like so.

from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException

try:
    el = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@id='btnRead']")
    driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", el)
except NoSuchElementException:
    print(nonefound)
sleep(5)
driver.quit()

This also clears it, if it exists but if it doesn't, error. I assume I am doing something wrong but I have tried a few different versions of this and I always get the error which leaves the windows hanging and stops the execution of the rest of the script.

Any ideas would be great.

[this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12793390/python-selenium-webdriver-to-check-if-element-does-not-exist-takes-time) will be your answer. Please try. — shimo, Jan 02 '20 at 13:35
I tried this but I can't get it to work. I appreciate that your help. To clarify, I can find the element when it is there. I just can't catch the error to stop the code from breaking when it isn't. — dommynick, Jan 02 '20 at 13:53

KunduK · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-02T13:48:36.360

You can check the length of the element in case you want to continue your scripts.

If length of the elements more that 0 this will click.

if len(driver.find_elements_by_xpath("//input[@id='btnRead']"))>0 :
    el = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@id='btnRead']")
    driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", el)
else:
    print("nonefound")

Or induce WebDriverWait() and visibility_of_element_located()

try:
    el = WebDriverWait(driver,5).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located(("//input[@id='btnRead']")))
    driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", el)
except NoSuchElementException:
    print("nonefound")

You need to import following libraries.

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

Thank you very much, I tried a version of this before and must have messed up the code somewhere. This solves my problem completely. I just tested it 10 different ways. — dommynick, Jan 02 '20 at 14:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 02 '20 at 13:43

Is it possible there is another exception other than NoSuchElementException. The "hanging" could be from a TimeoutException. Try printing there exception like this:

from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException

try:
    el = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@id='btnRead']")
    driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", el)
except Exception as e:
    print(e)
sleep(5)
driver.quit()

Python Selenium a hidden frame that appears sometimes with java script assert

2 Answers2