How to avoid StaleElementReferenceException in Selenium

Question

I m implementing a lot of Selenium tests using Java  Sometimes  my tests fail due to a StaleElementReferenceException  Could you suggest some approaches to making the tests more stable

User · Answer

I ve found solution here  In my case element becomes inaccessible in case of leaving current window  tab or page and coming back again     ignoring StaleElement       refreshed      and elementToBeClicable      did not help and I was getting exception on act doubleClick element  build   perform    string   Using function in my main test class   openForm someXpath     My BaseTest function   int defaultTime   15   boolean openForm String myXpath  throws Exception       int count   0      boolean clicked   false      while  count  lt  4     clicked            try               WebElement element   getWebElClickable myXpath defaultTime               act doubleClick element  build   perform                clicked   true              print  Element have been clicked                 break            catch  StaleElementReferenceException sere                sere toString                print  Trying to recover from    sere getMessage                 count count 1                    My BaseClass function   protected WebElement getWebElClickable String xpath  int waitSeconds            wait   new WebDriverWait driver  waitSeconds           return wait ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class  until                  ExpectedConditions refreshed ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable By xpath xpath

User · Answer

Generally this is due to the DOM being updated and you trying to access an updated new element -- but the DOM s refreshed so it s an invalid reference you have    Get around this by first using an explicit wait on the element to ensure the update is complete  then grab a fresh reference to the element again   Here s some psuedo code to illustrate  Adapted from some C  code I use for EXACTLY this issue    WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait browser  TimeSpan FromSeconds 10    IWebElement aRow   browser FindElement By XPath SOME XPATH HERE   IWebElement editLink   aRow FindElement By LinkText  Edit        this Click causes an AJAX call editLink Click       must first wait for the call to complete wait Until ExpectedConditions ElementExists By XPath SOME XPATH HERE       you ve lost the reference to the row  you must grab it again  aRow   browser FindElement By XPath SOME XPATH HERE      now proceed with asserts or other actions    Hope this helps

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The problem is by the time you pass the element from Javascript to Java back to Javascript it can have left the DOM  Try doing the whole thing in Javascript   driver executeScript  document querySelector   my id   click

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In my project I introduced a notion of StableWebElement  It is a wrapper for WebElement which is able to detect if element is Stale and find a new reference to the original element  I have added a helper methods to locating elements which return StableWebElement instead of WebElement and the problem with StaleElementReference disappeared   public static IStableWebElement FindStableElement this ISearchContext context  By by        var element   context FindElement by       return new StableWebElement context  element  by  SearchApproachType First        The code in C  is available on my project s page but it could be easily ported to java https   github com cezarypiatek Tellurium blob master Src MvcPages SeleniumUtils StableWebElement cs

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Kenny s solution is good  however it can be written in a more elegant way  new WebDriverWait driver  timeout           ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class           until  WebDriver d  - gt                d findElement By id  checkoutLink    click                return true                Or also   new WebDriverWait driver  timeout  ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class  until ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable By id  checkoutLink      driver findElement By id  checkoutLink    click      But anyway  best solution is to rely on Selenide library  it handles this kind of things and more   instead of element references it handles proxies so you never have to deal with stale elements  which can be quite difficult   Selenide

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Try this  while  true       loops forever until break     try      checks code for exceptions         WebElement ele           WebElement wait until ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable  By xpath Xpath                break     if no exceptions breaks out of loop            catch  org openqa selenium StaleElementReferenceException e1             Thread sleep 3000      you can set your value here maybe 2 secs         continue     continues to loop if exception is found

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This works for me  100  working  using C   public Boolean RetryingFindClick IWebElement webElement                Boolean result   false          int attempts   0          while  attempts  lt  2                        try                               webElement Click                    result   true                  break                            catch  StaleElementReferenceException e                                Logging Text e Message                             attempts                      return result

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I was having this issue intermittently  Unbeknownst to me  BackboneJS was running on the page and replacing the element I was trying to click  My code looked like this   driver findElement By id  checkoutLink    click      Which is of course functionally the same as this   WebElement checkoutLink   driver findElement By id  checkoutLink     checkoutLink click      What would occasionally happen was the javascript would replace the checkoutLink element in between finding and clicking it  ie   WebElement checkoutLink   driver findElement By id  checkoutLink        javascript replaces checkoutLink checkoutLink click      Which rightfully led to a StaleElementReferenceException when trying to click the link  I couldn t find any reliable way to tell WebDriver to wait until the javascript had finished running  so here s how I eventually solved it   new WebDriverWait driver  timeout       ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class       until new Predicate lt WebDriver gt               Override         public boolean apply  Nullable WebDriver driver                driver findElement By id  checkoutLink    click                return true                      This code will continually try to click the link  ignoring StaleElementReferenceExceptions until either the click succeeds or the timeout is reached  I like this solution because it saves you having to write any retry logic  and uses only the built-in constructs of WebDriver

User · Answer

A solution in C  would be   Helper class   internal class DriverHelper        private IWebDriver Driver   get  set        private WebDriverWait Wait   get  set         public DriverHelper string driverUrl  int timeoutInSeconds                Driver   new ChromeDriver            Driver Url   driverUrl          Wait   new WebDriverWait Driver  TimeSpan FromSeconds timeoutInSeconds               internal bool ClickElement string cssSelector                  Find the element         IWebElement element   Wait Until d  gt ExpectedConditions ElementIsVisible By CssSelector cssSelector    Driver           return Wait Until c   gt  ClickElement element  cssSelector               private bool ClickElement IWebElement element  string cssSelector                try                         Check if element is still included in the dom               If the element has changed a the OpenQA Selenium StaleElementReferenceException is thrown              bool isDisplayed   element Displayed               element Click                return true                    catch  StaleElementReferenceException                          wait until the element is visible again             element   Wait Until d   gt  ExpectedConditions ElementIsVisible By CssSelector cssSelector    Driver               return ClickElement element  cssSelector                     catch  Exception                        return false                      Invocation           DriverHelper driverHelper   new DriverHelper  http   www seleniumhq org docs 04 webdriver advanced jsp   10           driverHelper ClickElement  input value  csharp   first-child      Similarly can be used for Java

User · Answer

Kenny s solution is deprecated use this  i m using actions class to double click but you can do anything   new FluentWait lt  gt  driver  withTimeout 30  TimeUnit SECONDS  pollingEvery 5  TimeUnit SECONDS                       ignoring StaleElementReferenceException class                       until new Function                           Override                     public Object apply Object arg0                            WebElement e   driver findelement By xpath locatorKey                            Actions action   new Actions driver                           action moveToElement e  doubleClick   perform                            return true

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Maybe it was added more recently  but other answers fail to mention Selenium s implicit wait feature  which does all the above for you  and is built into Selenium   driver manage   timeouts   implicitlyWait 10 TimeUnit SECONDS    This will retry findElement   calls until the element has been found  or for 10 seconds   Source - http   www seleniumhq org docs 04 webdriver advanced jsp

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Clean findByAndroidId method that gracefully handles StaleElementReference   This is heavily based off of jspcal s answer but I had to modify that answer to get it working cleanly with our setup and so I wanted to add it here in case it s helpful to others  If this answer helped you  please go upvote jspcal s answer      This loops gracefully handles StateElementReference errors and retries up to 10 times  These can occur when an element  like a modal or notification  is no longer available  export async function findByAndroidId  id    assert   wd asserters isDisplayed  timeout   10000  interval   100              MAX ATTEMPTS   10    let attempt   0     while  attempt  lt  MAX ATTEMPTS         try         return await this waitForElementById   android id    id     assert  timeout  interval              catch   error           if   error message includes   StaleElementReference              attempt          else         throw error     Re-throws the error so the test fails as normal if the assertion fails

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The reason why the StaleElementReferenceException occurs has been laid out already  updates to the DOM between finding and doing something with the element   For the click-Problem I ve recently used a solution like this   public void clickOn By locator  WebDriver driver  int timeout        final WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait driver  timeout       wait until ExpectedConditions refreshed          ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable locator         driver findElement locator  click        The crucial part is the  chaining  of Selenium s own ExpectedConditions via the ExpectedConditions refreshed    This actually waits and checks if the element in question has been refreshed during the specified timeout and additionally waits for the element to become clickable   Have a look at the documentation for the refreshed method

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There could be a potential problem that leads to the StaleElementReferenceException that no one mentioned so far  in regard to actions     I explain it in Javascript  but it s the same in Java   This won t work   let actions   driver actions   bridge  true    let a   await driver findElement By css   a    await actions click a  perform      this leads to a DOM change   b will be removed and added again to the DOM  let b   await driver findElement By css   b    await actions click b  perform     But instantiating the actions again will solve it   let actions   driver actions   bridge  true    let a   await driver findElement By css   a    await actions click a  perform       this leads to a DOM change   b will be removed and added again to the DOM  actions   driver actions   bridge  true       new let b   await driver findElement By css   b    await actions click b  perform

User · Answer

Usually StaleElementReferenceException when element we try to access has appeared but other elements may affect the position of element we are intrested in hence when we try to click or getText or try to do some action on WebElement we get exception which usually says element not attached with DOM  Solution I tried is as follows   protected void clickOnElement By by            try               waitForElementToBeClickableBy by  click              catch  StaleElementReferenceException e                for  int attempts   1  attempts  lt  100  attempts                      try                       waitFor 500                       logger info  quot Stale element found retrying  quot    attempts                       waitForElementToBeClickableBy by  click                        break                    catch  StaleElementReferenceException e1                        logger info  quot Stale element found retrying  quot    attempts                                              protected WebElement waitForElementToBeClickableBy By by            WebDriverWait wait   new WebDriverWait getDriver    10           return wait until ExpectedConditions elementToBeClickable by           In above code I first try to wait and then click on element if exception occurs then I catch it and try to loop it as there is a possibility that still all elements may not be loaded and again exception can occur

User · Answer

This can happen if a DOM operation happening on the page is temporarily causing the element to be inaccessible  To allow for those cases  you can try to access the element several times in a loop before finally throwing an exception   Try this excellent solution from darrelgrainger blogspot com   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

[java] How to avoid "StaleElementReferenceException" in Selenium?

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