Stale element just after Find

Question

I'm using ChromeDriver in Groovy, for clarification.

I know that you usually can get a Stale Element Exception if you save an element, the page changes and then you try to access it. But my problem is that I sometimes at random get that error when i literraly just obtained it.

My code looks something like this:

def elem = new WebDriverWait(driver, timeout).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath(xpath)))
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", elem)
elem.click()

And it's on the elem.click() that I get the exception, which makes no sense to me.

the DOM is either still updating, or it's updating after the scroll. Chances are you don't need that scroll. The click method will automatically scroll into view. You can try/catch the click call if needed... if stale element exception is caught, re-get the element. (OR just use a sleep of a set amount of time after scroll, or before you get the element, depending on what's causing the stale element.) — pcalkins, Sep 22 '21 at 18:54
I added the scroll 'cause it helped me prevent some other exception, but it's probably a different issue altogether. — Franco Agustín Rodriguez, Sep 24 '21 at 16:11

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 22 '21 at 19:04

There are several technologies to implement web pages. In some such technologies web elements are appearing and then re-built so that Selenium detects those elements as visible/clickable but the elements are immediately re-built so the initial reference becomes stale.
On of the simplest workarounds to work on such pages with Selenium is to use loops of try-catch like the below:

public boolean retryingFindClick(String xpath) {
    int attempts = 0;
    while(attempts < 5) {
        try {
            def elem = new WebDriverWait(driver, timeout).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath(xpath)))
            ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", elem)
            elem.click()
            return true;
        } catch(StaleElementException e) {
        }
        attempts++;
    }
    return false;
}

See here for more details

Stale element just after Find

1 Answers1