Python Selenium can't find any element on a webpage

Question

I want to automate a simple task with selenium. Login to this website: https://www.lernsax.de/. I'am trying to locate the element via xpath but that doesn't work at all and I get a NoSuchElementException. I'am using Chromedriver and I have tried to use different locating methods like

find_element_by_id find_element_by_name find_element_by_xpath find_element_by_link_text find_element_by_partial_link_text find_element_by_tag_name find_element_by_class_name

but I always get this error. I have already tried different websites and it works fine with xpath.

Any help would mean a lot!

Here's my full code:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import time
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path="C:\chromedriver\chromedriver.exe")
driver.get("https://lernsax.de")
loginbtn = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="skeleton_main"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/a')
loginbtn.click()
time.sleep(2)
driver.quit()

and the full error message:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/.../lernsax.py", line 6, in <module>
    loginbtn = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="skeleton_main"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/a')
  File "C:\Users\...\PycharmProjects\LernsaxAutomation\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 394, in find_element_by_xpath
    return self.find_element(by=By.XPATH, value=xpath)
  File "C:\Users\...\PycharmProjects\LernsaxAutomation\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 976, in find_element
    return self.execute(Command.FIND_ELEMENT, {
  File "C:\Users\...\PycharmProjects\LernsaxAutomation\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 321, in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
  File "C:\Users\...\PycharmProjects\LernsaxAutomation\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\errorhandler.py", line 242, in check_response
    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"xpath","selector":"//*[@id="skeleton_main"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/a"}
  (Session info: chrome=80.0.3987.149)

Can you pls share your code and full error? – Gokul nath Mar 20 '20 at 14:50 — Gokul nath, Mar 20 '20 at 14:50

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 20 '20 at 16:33

2

An iframe is present on the page, so you need to first switch the driver to the iframe and the operate on the element:

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


driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://lernsax.de")
# Switch to iframe
driver.switch_to.frame(driver.find_element_by_id('main_frame'))
# Find the element by applying explicit wait on it and then click on it
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//*[@id='skeleton_main']/div[1]/div[2]/div/a"))).click()

edited Mar 20 '20 at 16:33

Corey Goldberg

59,062
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answered Mar 20 '20 at 15:11

Sameer Arora

4,439
3
10
20

Do you mean `WebDriverWait(driver, 20)` ? Not `WebDriverWait(browser, 20)` ? – EngineeredJonas Mar 20 '20 at 15:43
@EngineeredJonas yeah i made a mistake there, have corrected it, please pick the updated ans – Sameer Arora Mar 20 '20 at 15:44

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 20 '20 at 15:12

2

Looks like the login form is contained within an iframe, which you will need to switch into, and perform the operations you need. Add below before you click on login button.

driver.switch_to.frame('main_frame')

answered Mar 20 '20 at 15:12

Gokul nath

494
2
8
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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '20 at 15:32

As the the desired element is within an <iframe> so to invoke click() on the element you have to:

Induce WebDriverWait for the desired frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it().
Induce WebDriverWait for the desired element_to_be_clickable().

You can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

driver.get('https://www.lernsax.de/wws/9.php#/wws/101505.php?sid=97608267430324706358471707170230S5c89c6aa')
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it((By.CSS_SELECTOR,"iframe#content-frame")))
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "button[data-qa='reporting-filter-trigger-toggle'][data-ember-action]"))).click()

Using XPATH:

driver.get('https://www.lernsax.de/wws/9.php#/wws/101505.php?sid=97608267430324706358471707170230S5c89c6aa')
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it((By.XPATH,"//iframe[@id='main_frame']")))
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//a[@class='mo' and text()='Login']"))).click()

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

Browser Snapshot:

Reference

You can find a coupple of relevant discussions in:

Thank you, makes sense! – EngineeredJonas Mar 20 '20 at 15:50 — EngineeredJonas, Mar 20 '20 at 15:50

Python Selenium can't find any element on a webpage

3 Answers3

Reference

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