stale element reference element is not attached to the page document

Question

I have list which has multiple links under each section  Each section has same links I need to click a particular link under each section  I have written the below code but when it executes it gives me stale element reference  element is not attached to the page document error   This is my code   public static void main String   args  throws InterruptedException        WebDriver driver   new ChromeDriver        driver navigate   to  url                  driver findElement By id  Login1 txtEmailID    sendKeys  hourbank5     com        driver findElement By id  Login1 txtPassword    sendKeys  Testing1         driver findElement By id  Login1 btnLogin    click        List lt WebElement gt  LeftNavLinks driver findElements By xpath       id  sliding-navigation    a         Thread sleep 1000       String ben  Benefit Status       String   linkTexts   new String LeftNavLinks size         int i   0      for  WebElement e   LeftNavLinks                    linkTexts i    e getText            System out print i       linkTexts i    n            if linkTexts i  equals ben                         String BenefitStatLi       id  sliding-navigation   li  s  a               System out print i       linkTexts i    n                    driver findElement By xpath String format BenefitStatLi i    click                driver findElement By xpath        id  divContentHolder   div 1  a 1     click                      i                 This is the HTML structure is as below   lt div id  ucAdminMenu divMenu  gt     lt ul id  sliding-navigation  gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Claims Status lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Eligibility Status lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt h3 gt Section-1 lt  h3 gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Forms and Documents lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href   HourBank aspx id 002  gt Hour Bank lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt h3 gt Section-2 lt  h3 gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Benefit Status lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Forms and Documents lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt h3 gt Section-3 lt  h3 gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Forms and Documents lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt h3 gt Testing Fund lt  h3 gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Benefit Status lt  a gt       lt  li gt       lt li class  sliding-element  gt         lt a href     gt Order ID Card lt  a gt       lt  li gt     lt  ul gt   lt  div gt    The Error Trace is        Exception in thread  main   org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException  stale element  reference  element is not attached to the page document

User · Answer

To handle it  I use the following click method  This will attempt to find and click the element  If the DOM changes between the find and click  it will try again  The idea is that if it failed and I try again immediately the second attempt will succeed  If the DOM changes are very rapid then this will not work   public boolean retryingFindClick By by        boolean result   false      int attempts   0      while attempts  lt  2            try               driver findElement by  click                result   true              break            catch StaleElementException e                      attempts              return result

User · Answer

Use this code   public class LinkTest           public static void main String   args                 WebDriver driver   new FirefoxDriver            driver navigate   to  file    C  Users vkiran Desktop xyz html            List lt WebElement gt  alllinks  driver findElements By xpath       id  sliding-navigation    a             String a   new String alllinks size             for int i 0 i lt alllinks size   i                          a i  alllinks get i  getText                 if a i  startsWith  B                                  System out println  clicking on this link    driver findElement By linkText a i    getText                     driver findElement By linkText a i    click                                 else                               System out println  does not starts with B so not clicking

User · Answer

This errors have two common causes  The element has been deleted entirely  or the element is no longer attached to the DOM   If you already checked if it is not your case  you could be facing the same problem as me   The element in the DOM is not found because your page is not entirely loaded when Selenium is searching for the element  To solve that  you can put an explicit wait condition that tells Selenium to wait until the element is available to be clicked on   from selenium webdriver support import expected conditions as EC  wait   WebDriverWait driver  10  element   wait until EC element to be clickable  By ID   someid       See  https   selenium-python readthedocs io waits html

User · Answer

Just break the loop when you find the element you want to click on it  for example     List lt WebElement gt  buttons   getButtonElements        for  WebElement b   buttons            if  b getText   equals  Next                b click                break

User · Answer

What is the line which gives exception     The reason for this is because the element to which you have referred is removed from the DOM structure  I was facing the same problem while working with IEDriver  The reason was because javascript loaded the element one more time after i have referred so my date reference pointed to an unexisting object even if it was right their on UI  I used the following workaround   try       WebElement date   driver findElement By linkText Utility getSheetData path  7  1  2         date click      catch org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException ex        WebElement date   driver findElement By linkText Utility getSheetData path  7  1  2         date click        See if the same can help you

User · Answer

The thing here is that you re using a for loop outside of your conditional statement   After the conditions in your IF statement are met you probably navigate to another page  thus when the for loop attempts to iterate once more  you get the stale element error because you re on a different page   You can add a break at the end of your if statement  this worked for me

User · Answer

This could be done in newer versions of selenium in JS  but all supporting stalenessOf will work      const   until     require  selenium-webdriver     driver wait          until stalenessOf            driver findElement              By css SQLQueriesByPhpMyAdminSelectors sqlQueryArea                                 5   1000                then  driver findElement By css SQLQueriesByPhpMyAdminSelectors sqlQueryArea          sendKeys sqlString

User · Answer

In my case  I had a page where it was an input type  date  whose reference I had got on page load  but When I tried to interact with it  it showed this exception and that was quite meaningful as Javascript had manipulated my control hence it was detached from the document and I had to re-get its reference after the javascript had performed its job with the control  So  this is how my code looked before the exception   if  elemDate    null         elemDate Clear         elemDate SendKeys model Age       Code after the exception was raised   int tries   0  do       try               tries            if  elemDate    null                           these lines were causing the exception so I had break after these are successfully executed because if they are executed that means the control was found and attached to the document and we have taken the reference of it again              elemDate Clear                elemDate SendKeys model Age               break                      catch  StaleElementReferenceException                System Threading Thread Sleep 10      put minor fake delay so Javascript on page does its actions with controls         elemDate   driver FindElement By Id dateId            while  tries  lt  3      Try it three times    So  Now you can perform further actions with your code or you can quit the driver if it was unsuccessful in getting the control to work   if tries  gt  2          element was not found  find out what is causing the control detachment        driver Quit       return        Hurray   Control was attached and actions were performed     Do something with it         Something that I have learnt so far is  catching exceptions to know   about successful code execution is not a good idea  But  I had to do   it and I found this work-around to be working well in this case    PS  After writing all this  I just noticed the tags that this thread was for java  This code sample is just for demonstration purpose  It might help people who have issue in C  language  Or it can be easily translated to java as it doesn t have much C  specific code

User · Answer

Whenever you face this issue  just define the web element once again above the line in which you are getting an Error   Example   WebElement button   driver findElement By xpath  xpath     button click       here you do something like update or save     then you try to use the button WebElement again to click  button click      Since the DOM has changed e g  through the update action  you are receiving a StaleElementReference Error   Solution   WebElement button   driver findElement By xpath  xpath     button click       here you do something like update or save     then you define the button element again before you use it WebElement button1   driver findElement By xpath  xpath       that new element will point to the same element in the new DOM button1 click

User · Answer

try       WebElement button   driver findElement By xpath  xpath                 button click      catch org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException ex        WebElement button   driver findElement By xpath  xpath                 button click        This try catch code actually worked for me  I got the same stale element error

User · Answer

use this code to wait till the element is attached   boolean breakIt   true          while  true            breakIt   true          try                  write your code here           catch  Exception e                if  e getMessage   contains  element is not attached                      breakIt   false                                  if  breakIt                break

User · Answer

According to  Abhishek Singh s you need to understand the problem      What is the line which gives exception      The reason for this is because the element to which you have referred is removed from the DOM structure   and you can not refer to it anymore  imagine what element s ID has changed     Follow the code   class TogglingPage      FindBy        private WebElement btnTurnOff      FindBy        private WebElement btnTurnOn     TogglingPage turnOff         this btnTurnOff isDisplayed          this btnTurnOff click                when clicked  button should swap into btnTurnOn     this btnTurnOn isDisplayed        this btnTurnOn click                 when clicked  button should swap into btnTurnOff     this btnTurnOff isDisplayed          throws an exception     return new TogglingPage            Now  let us wonder why    btnTurnOff was found by a driver - ok btnTurnOff was replaced by btnTurnOn - ok btnTurnOn was found by a driver  - ok btnTurnOn was replaced by btnTurnOff - ok we call this btnTurnOff isDisplayed    on the element which does not exist anymore in Selenium sense - you can see it  it works perfectly  but it is a different instance of the same button     Possible fix     TogglingPage turnOff         this btnTurnOff isDisplayed          this btnTurnOff click         TogglingPage newPage   new TogglingPage        newPage btnTurnOn isDisplayed        newPage btnTurnOn click         TogglingPage newerPage   new TogglingPage        newerPage btnTurnOff isDisplayed          ok     return newerPage

[java] stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document

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