Element not interactable with selenium python

Question

I know that this question was asked many times on stackoverflow. I tried different solutions but did not get it work. Here is a simple MWE to automate the search on Youtube. Any body familiar with this can help explain the raison ?

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys


options = Options()
options.add_argument('--disable-extensions')
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
options.add_argument('--disable-dev-shm-usage')
options.add_argument('--remote-debugging-port=9515')
options.add_argument('--disable-setuid-sandbox')
options.add_argument("--start-maximized")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service("/usr/bin/chromedriver"), options=options)

url = "https://www.youtube.com/"
driver.get(url)

search_area = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, '//*[@id="search"]')

driver.implicitly_wait(10)

search_area.send_keys('Lionel Messi', Keys.ENTER)


print(search_area.text)

Does this answer your question? [Selenium 'send\_keys' does not work for YouTube](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72818517/selenium-send-keys-does-not-work-for-youtube) — JaSON, Jun 30 '22 at 18:03
@JaSON, I really choose Youtube just to write the example. It is not my goal. However, If I understand correctly the xpath can not be unique, which triggers the errors. It is really better to trigger the error in find_element — LearnToGrow, Jun 30 '22 at 18:08
I'm not sure I understand what do you mean by "unique XPath"... There can be dozens, hundreds XPaths for the same node. You just should write your own XPath using unique attributes/relations instead of copy/paste from useless Chrome dev-tools helper. The problem with Youtube - there are more than 1 element with the same @id ("search"). It's not normal, but this happens — JaSON, Jun 30 '22 at 18:15
What error are you running into? In the meantime this might help. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70814704/selenium-python-how-to-load-default-chrome-profile — ANewCoder, Jun 30 '22 at 18:16
@JaSON My background is not a Web developer, but based on some examples, I though that every node has a unique XPath so that we can access it to send it data or to get data from, etc otherwise is it not possible to access them. — LearnToGrow, Jun 30 '22 at 18:22
`id` is an attribute that *should be unique*... But not all developers know about it :) — JaSON, Jun 30 '22 at 18:28
@JaSON, Exactly otherwise, no way to get any info. I am really got angry since yeterday! — LearnToGrow, Jun 30 '22 at 18:30
@LearnToGrow there is a way to create XPath that will select required node. But, as I said, you need to write your own XPath. Do not use the XPath from browser dev-tools. You can check basics of XPath syntax [here](https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_syntax.asp) — JaSON, Jun 30 '22 at 18:34

Prophet · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-30T18:30:35.807

1

There are 2 problems with your code:

You should use unique locator.
The locator you are using here matching 5 elements on that page, so Selenium returns you the first element on the page matching the locator you passing here while you need the second match.
This locator will work better //input[@id="search"]
You need to add a delay.
Selenium returns you search_area element at the moment that element is found on the page while it is still may be not ready to be interacted with.
The best way to overcome this issue is to use Explicit Waits.
So, this code should work better:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys


options = Options()
options.add_argument('--disable-extensions')
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
options.add_argument('--disable-dev-shm-usage')
options.add_argument('--remote-debugging-port=9515')
options.add_argument('--disable-setuid-sandbox')
options.add_argument("--start-maximized")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service("/usr/bin/chromedriver"), options=options)
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 20)

url = "https://www.youtube.com/"
driver.get(url)

search_area = wait.until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//input[@id='search']")))

search_area.send_keys('Lionel Messi', Keys.ENTER)

print(search_area.text)

P.S.
driver.implicitly_wait(10) is NOT a delay command, this will not put a delay of 10 seconds on the line where you put it. This only defines the timeout for Selenium to way for element presence. Also, you put if AFTER locating the element, so this could not affect the previously located element.

edited Jun 30 '22 at 18:30

answered Jun 30 '22 at 18:24

Prophet

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where did you get this `//ytd-searchbox[@id="search"]` I am using inspect tools and copy the XPATH? – LearnToGrow Jun 30 '22 at 18:29
You are right, I have user parent element here, I'm sorry. Fixed that – Prophet Jun 30 '22 at 18:30
When copy the xpath, I got this one `//*[@id="search"]` never get `//input[@id="search"]`. The problem is I am accessing the wrong path. – LearnToGrow Jun 30 '22 at 18:34
You should learn how to create a correct locators. The automatically created locators are mostly wrong or bad. – Prophet Jun 30 '22 at 18:35
Any source to learn that please ? However, in the case of Youtube, full xpath is working – LearnToGrow Jun 30 '22 at 18:36
1

Try googling something like "selenium locators best practices" – Prophet Jun 30 '22 at 18:37
can you take a look to this question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72815916/selenium-python-element-not-interactable?noredirect=1#comment128615403_72815916 – LearnToGrow Jun 30 '22 at 18:41
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I see.. Unfortunately, I have no Selenium with Python on my PC now, while to give you an answer there I would need to run the code I think about. Giving answers without trying that will no be good enough there... – Prophet Jun 30 '22 at 18:48
1

Thanks. at least, I understand the problem. All the ID and XPATH are wrong. Using `wait.until()` trigger a timeout exception...I – LearnToGrow Jun 30 '22 at 18:54
1

Locators are correct (unique) there, but are bad. What I can advice is to wait for elements visibility rather than for elements presence. – Prophet Jun 30 '22 at 18:57

Element not interactable with selenium python

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