Selenium WebDriver How to Resolve Stale Element Reference Exception

Question

I have the following code in a Selenium 2 Web Driver test which works when I am debugging but most of the time fails when I run it in the build  I know it must be something to do with the way the page is not being refreshed but do not know how to resolve it so any pointers as to what I have done wrong are appreciated   I am using JSF primefaces as my web application framework  When I click on the add new link a popup dialog box appears with a input box that I can enter a date into then click save  It is on getting the input element to enter text into that I get a stale element ref exception   Thanks in advance  import static org junit Assert assertEquals    import java util HashMap  import java util List  import java util Map   import org junit Test  import org openqa selenium By  import org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException  import org openqa selenium WebDriver  import org openqa selenium WebElement  import org openqa selenium chrome ChromeDriver  import org openqa selenium support ui ExpectedCondition  import org openqa selenium support ui WebDriverWait    public class EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest   Map lt String  Map lt String  String gt  gt  tableData   new HashMap lt String  Map lt String  String gt  gt       Test public void testEnterActiveSubmission   throws Exception          Create a new instance of the Firefox driver        Notice that the remainder of the code relies on the interface          not the implementation      System setProperty  webdriver chrome driver    C  apps chromedriver exe        WebDriver driver   new ChromeDriver            And now use this to visit Google     driver get  http   localhost 8080 strfingerprinting           Alternatively the same thing can be done like this        driver navigate   to  http   www google com            Find the text input element by its name     WebElement element   driver findElement By linkText  Manage Submissions         element click        parseTableData driver   form submissionDataTable data   1       assertEquals tableData get  form submissionDataTable data   get  12     Archived         WebElement newElement   driver findElement By linkText  Add new         newElement click         WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait driver 10       wait until new ExpectedCondition lt Boolean gt              public Boolean apply WebDriver driver                WebElement button   driver findElement By                      name  createForm dateInput input                  if  button isDisplayed                    return true              else                 return false                          WebElement textElement   driver findElement By name  createForm dateInput input         textElement sendKeys  24 04 2013        WebElement saveElement   driver findElement By name  createForm saveButton         saveElement click         driver navigate   refresh         parseTableData driver   form submissionDataTable data   2          Close the browser     driver quit         private void parseTableData WebDriver driver  String id  int expectedRows           Check the title of the page or expected element on page     WebElement subTableElement   driver findElement By id id        List lt WebElement gt  tr collection subTableElement findElements By xpath  id     id       tr          assertEquals  incorrect number of rows returned   expectedRows  tr collection size         int row num col num      row num 1       if tableData get id     null            tableData put id  new HashMap lt String  String gt                Map lt String  String gt  subTable   tableData get id       for WebElement trElement   tr collection                List lt WebElement gt  td collection trElement findElements By xpath  td             col num 1          for WebElement tdElement   td collection                        subTable put row num        col num  tdElement getText                 col num                      row num                When I run this I get the following exception but it can occur on   WebElement textElement   driver findElement By name  createForm dateInput input        or  if  button isDisplayed      exception trace  org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException  stale element reference  element is not attached to the page document  Session info  chrome 26 0 1410 64     Driver info  chromedriver 0 8 platform Windows NT 6 0 SP2 x86   WARNING  The server did not provide any stacktrace information  Command duration or timeout  56 milliseconds For documentation on this error  please visit         http   seleniumhq org exceptions stale element reference html Build info  version   2 32 0   revision   6c40c187d01409a5dc3b7f8251859150c8af0bcb   time   2013-04-09 10 39 28  System info  os name   Windows Vista   os arch   x86   os version   6 0   java version   1 6 0 10  Session ID  784c53b99ad83c44d089fd04e9a42904 Driver info  org openqa selenium chrome ChromeDriver Capabilities   platform XP  acceptSslCerts true  javascriptEnabled true    browserName chrome  rotatable false  driverVersion 0 8  locationContextEnabled true   version 26 0 1410 64  cssSelectorsEnabled true  databaseEnabled true  handlesAlerts true   browserConnectionEnabled false  nativeEvents true  webStorageEnabled true    applicationCacheEnabled false  takesScreenshot true   at sun reflect NativeConstructorAccessorImpl newInstance0 Native Method  at  sun reflect NativeConstructorAccessorImpl newInstance NativeConstructorAccessorImpl java 39  at  sun reflect DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl newInstance DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl java 27  at java lang reflect Constructor newInstance Constructor java 513  at org openqa selenium remote ErrorHandler createThrowable ErrorHandler java 187  at org openqa selenium remote ErrorHandler throwIfResponseFailed ErrorHandler java 145  at org openqa selenium remote RemoteWebDriver execute RemoteWebDriver java 554  at org openqa selenium remote RemoteWebElement execute RemoteWebElement java 268  at org openqa selenium remote RemoteWebElement isDisplayed RemoteWebElement java 320  at com integration web EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest 1 apply EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest java 58  at com integration web EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest 1 apply EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest java 1  at org openqa selenium support ui FluentWait until FluentWait java 208  at com integration web EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest testEnterActiveSubmission EnterActiveSubmissionIntegrationTest java 53  at sun reflect NativeMethodAccessorImpl invoke0 Native Method

User · Answer

The WebDriver have to wait until the Element is located and a timeout is after 10 seconds    WebElement myDynamicElement1   new WebDriverWait driver  10  until      ExpectedConditions presenceOfElementLocated          By name  createForm dateInput input

User · Answer

Use the Expected Conditions provided by Selenium to wait for the WebElement    While you debug  the client is not as fast as if you just run a unit test or a maven build   This means in debug mode the client has more time to prepare the element  but if the build is running the same code he is much faster and the WebElement your looking for is might not visible in the DOM of the Page   Trust me with this  I had the same problem   for example   inClient waitUntil ExpectedConditions visibilityOf YourElement 2000     This easy method calls wait after his call for 2 seconds on the visibility of your WebElement on DOM

User · Answer

I would suggest not to use  CachelookUp for Selenium WebDriver for StaleElementReferenceException   If you are using  FindBy annotation and have  CacheLookUp  just comment it out and check

User · Answer

Please donot confuse others amongs ourselves  if we are not sure on the answers  It is quite frustrating for end user  The simple and the short answer is  use the  CacheLookup annotation in webdriver  Please refer below link for it  How does  CacheLookup work in WebDriver

User · Answer

After deep investigation of the problem I found that error occurs selecting DIV elements that were added for Bootstrap only  Chrome browser removes such DIVS and the error occurs  It is enough to step down and select real element for fixing an error  For example  my modal dialog has structure    lt div class  modal-content  uib-modal-transclude    gt       lt div class  modal-header  gt                   lt  div gt       lt div class  modal-body  gt           lt form class  form-horizontal      gt                           lt  form gt       lt div gt   lt div gt    Selecting div class  modal-body  generates an error  selecting form     works as it would

User · Answer

In my case  this error was caused by the fact that I was defining the ActionChains element outside of the   def parse self  response     method when using a combination of Selenium and Scrapy  e g    Doesn t work   class MySpider scrapy Spider        action chains   ActionChains self driver    Moving action chains   ActionChains self driver  inside the def parse self  response   solved the problem  e g    Works   def parse self  response        self driver get response url       action chains   ActionChains self driver

User · Answer

With reference to the answer given by  djangofan  it looks like the viable solution is to keep your code inside try catch block where a possible Staleness occurs  When I use this below code I didn t get the problem any time   public void inputName String name        try           waitForVisibilityElement name    My own visibility function         findElement By name  customerName    sendKeys name             catch  StaleElementReferenceException e                e getMessage              I have tried using the ExpectedConditions presenceOfElementLocated By  but the staleness exceptions still throws intermittently    Hope this solution helps

User · Answer

In Selenium 3  you can use ExpectedConditions refreshed your condition   It will handle the StaleElementReferenceException and retry the condition

User · Answer

Use webdriverwait with ExpectedCondition in try catch block with for loop EX  for python  for i in range 4       try          element   WebDriverWait driver  120  until                    EC presence of element located  By XPATH   xpath             element click               break     except StaleElementReferenceException          print  exception

User · Answer

The best way I have found to avoid stale element references is to not use the PageFactory  but instead store the locators  i e  By elements    public class WebDriverFactory           if you want to multithread tests  use a ThreadLocal lt WebDriver gt          instead         This also makes it so you don t have to pass around WebDriver objects        when instantiating new Page classes     private static WebDriver driver   null       public static WebDriver getDriver            return driver            public static void setDriver WebDriver browser            driver   browser                     class to let me avoid typing out the lengthy driver findElement s  so     much public Abstract class PageBase       private WebDriver driver   WebDriverFactory getDriver            using var args to let you easily chain locators     protected By getBy By    locator          return new ByChained locator              protected WebElement find By    locators          return driver findElement getBy locators               protected List lt WebElement gt  findEm By    locators          return driver findElements getBy locators               protected Select select By    locators          return new Select getBy locators             public class somePage extends PageBase     private static WebDriver driver   WebDriverFactory getDriver      private static final By buttonBy   By cssSelector   btn-primary       public void clickButton          WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait driver  10        wait until ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable buttonBy         find buttonBy  click             I have a class full of static WebDriverWait methods that I use   And I don t remember if the above use of WebDriver wait will handle the StaleElement exception or not   If not  you could use a fluent wait instead like in DjangoFan s answer   But the principle I m displaying will work  even if that specific line with the WebDriverWait blows up   So the tldr    Use locators  and a combination of WebDriverWait Fluent wait  relocating the element yourself  so if your element goes stale  you can relocate it without having to duplicate the locator in an  FindBy  for a pagefactory initialized element   since there s no WebElement relocate   method  To simplify life  have an Abstract BasePage class with convenience methods for locating an element list of elements

User · Answer

This worked for me  source here                Attempts to click on an element multiple times  to avoid stale element        exceptions caused by rapid DOM refreshes                 param d                   The WebDriver         param by                   By element locator             public static void dependableClick WebDriver d  By by                final int MAXIMUM WAIT TIME   10          final int MAX STALE ELEMENT RETRIES   5           WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait d  MAXIMUM WAIT TIME           int retries   0          while  true                        try                               wait until ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable by   click                     return                            catch  StaleElementReferenceException e                                if  retries  lt  MAX STALE ELEMENT RETRIES                                        retries                        continue                                    else                                       throw e

User · Answer

I have solved this problem with the following code   public WebElement waitForElement final By findBy  final int waitTime        Wait lt AppiumDriver gt  wait   new FluentWait lt  gt   AppiumDriver  driver               withTimeout waitTime  TimeUnit SECONDS               pollingEvery POLL TIME  TimeUnit SECONDS               ignoring NoSuchElementException class StaleElementReferenceException class        WebElement webElement   wait until new Function lt AppiumDriver  WebElement gt               Override         public WebElement apply AppiumDriver driver                System out println  Trying to find element     findBy toString                                 WebElement element   driver findElement findBy               return element                        return webElement

User · Answer

StaleElementReferenceException is due to unavailability of an element being accessed by findelement method   You need make sure before performing any operations on an element If you have a doubt on availability of that element   Waiting for an element s visibility   new WebDriverWait driver  10   until new ExpectedCondition                    public Boolean apply WebDriver d                  return d findElement By name  createForm dateInput input    isDisplayed                Or else Use this logic to verify whether the element is present or not

User · Answer

Just download new chrome extension and use selenium server 3 it will work fine

User · Answer

Two reasons for Stale element   An element that is found on a web page referenced as a WebElement in WebDriver then the DOM changes  probably due to JavaScript functions  that WebElement goes stale  The element has been deleted entirely    When you try to interact with the staled WebElement any above case   the StaleElementException is thrown   How to avoid resolve Stale Exception    Storing locators to your elements instead of references    driver   webdriver Firefox    driver get  http   www github com    search input   lambda  driver find element by name  q    search input   send keys  hello world n     time sleep 5     search input   send keys  hello frank n      no stale element exception     Leverage hooks in the JS libraries used         Using Jquery queue to get animation queue length      animationQueueIs           return   queue       s   0    fx   length            element id     wait until lambda  self driver execute script animationQueueIs   0      Moving your actions into JavaScript injection     self driver execute script      li contains  Narendra      click          Proactively wait for the element to go stale        Wait till the element goes stale  this means the list has updated   wait until lambda  is element stale old link reference      This solution  which worked for me  I have mentioned here if you have any additional scenario  which worked for you then comment below

User · Answer

When a Stale Element Exception occurs    Stale element exception can happen when the libraries supporting those textboxes  buttons  links has changed which means the elements are same but the reference has now changed in the website without affecting the locators  Thus the reference which we stored in our cache including the library reference has now become old or stale because the page has been refreshed with updated libraries   for int j 0  j lt 5 j    try       WebElement elementName driver findElement By name    createForm dateInput input           break    catch StaleElementReferenceException e   e toString    System out println    Stale element error  trying           e getMessage       elementName sendKeys    20 06 2018

User · Answer

This is not a problem   If you wrap your  findElement call in a try-catch block and catch the StaleElementReferenceException   then you can loop and retry as many times as you need until it succeeds   Here are some examples I wrote   Another example from Selenide project   public static final Condition hidden   new Condition  hidden   true         Override     public boolean apply WebElement element          try           return  element isDisplayed            catch  StaleElementReferenceException elementHasDisappeared            return true

User · Answer

First of all lets be clear about what a WebElement is   A WebElement is a reference to an element in the DOM   A StaleElementException is thrown when the element you were interacting is destroyed and then recreated   Most complex web pages these days will move things about on the fly as the user interacts with it and this requires elements in the DOM to be destroyed and recreated   When this happens the reference to the element in the DOM that you previously had becomes stale and you are no longer able to use this reference to interact with the element in the DOM   When this happens you will need to refresh your reference  or in real world terms find the element again

User · Answer

This solution worked fine for me   Adding error handling function and try again  var pollLoop   function            element by id  spinnerElem    getAttribute  class   then function  cls                    if  cls indexOf  spinner-active    gt  -1                           wait for the spinner                   else                         do your logic                     promise defer   fulfill                                     function                         This err handling function is to handle the  StaleElementReferenceError  and makes sure we find the element always                  pollLoop

User · Answer

I tried many of the above suggestions  but simplest one worked  In my case it was the use of  CachelookUp for the web element caused the stale element exception  I guess after refreshing the page  the element reference not reloaded and failed to find the element  Disabling  CachelookUp line for the element worked          Search button      FindBy how How XPATH  using      input  value  Search              CachelookUp     WebElement BtnSearch

User · Answer

Try waiting for an element like this      Waiting 30 seconds for an element to be present on the page  checking    for its presence once every 5 seconds  Wait lt WebDriver gt  stubbornWait   new FluentWait lt WebDriver gt  driver       withTimeout 30  SECONDS       pollingEvery 5  SECONDS       ignoring NoSuchElementException class       ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class    WebElement foo   stubbornWait until new Function lt WebDriver  WebElement gt          public WebElement apply WebDriver driver            return driver findElement By id  foo

User · Answer

What was happening to me was that webdriver would find a reference to a DOM element and then at some point after that reference was obtained  javascript would remove that element and re-add it  because the page was doing a redraw  basically    Try this   Figure out the action that causes the dom element to be removed from the DOM   In my case  it was an async ajax call  and the element was being removed from the DOM when the ajax call was complete   Right after that action  wait for the element to be stale       do a thing  possibly async  that should remove the element from the DOM     wait until ExpectedConditions stalenessOf theElement      At this point you are sure that the element is now stale   So  the next time you reference the element  wait again  this time waiting for it to be re-added to the DOM   wait until ExpectedConditions presenceOfElementLocated By id  whatever

[java] Selenium WebDriver How to Resolve Stale Element Reference Exception?

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