[java] Assert that a WebElement is not present using Selenium WebDriver with java

In tests that I write, if I want to assert a WebElement is present on the page, I can do a simple:

driver.findElement(By.linkText("Test Search"));

This will pass if it exists and it will bomb out if it does not exist. But now I want to assert that a link does not exist. I am unclear how to do this since the code above does not return a boolean.

EDIT This is how I came up with my own fix, I'm wondering if there's a better way out there still.

public static void assertLinkNotPresent (WebDriver driver, String text) throws Exception {
List<WebElement> bob = driver.findElements(By.linkText(text));
  if (bob.isEmpty() == false) {
    throw new Exception (text + " (Link is present)");
  }
}

I think that you can just catch org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException that will be thrown by driver.findElement if there's no such element:

import org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException;

....

public static void assertLinkNotPresent(WebDriver driver, String text) {
    try {
        driver.findElement(By.linkText(text));
        fail("Link with text <" + text + "> is present");
    } catch (NoSuchElementException ex) { 
        /* do nothing, link is not present, assert is passed */ 
    }
}

It looks like findElements() only returns quickly if it finds at least one element. Otherwise it waits for the implicit wait timeout, before returning zero elements - just like findElement().

To keep the speed of the test good, this example temporarily shortens the implicit wait, while waiting for the element to disappear:

static final int TIMEOUT = 10;

public void checkGone(String id) {
    FluentWait<WebDriver> wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TIMEOUT)
            .ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class);

    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    try {
        wait.until(ExpectedConditions.numberOfElementsToBe(By.id(id), 0));
    } finally {
        resetTimeout();
    }
}

void resetTimeout() {
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(TIMEOUT, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}

Still looking for a way to avoid the timeout completely though...

For node.js I've found the following to be effective way to wait for an element to no longer be present:

// variable to hold loop limit
    var limit = 5;
// variable to hold the loop count
    var tries = 0;
        var retry = driver.findElements(By.xpath(selector));
            while(retry.size > 0 && tries < limit){
                driver.sleep(timeout / 10)
                tries++;
                retry = driver.findElements(By.xpath(selector))
            }

boolean titleTextfield = driver.findElement(By.id("widget_polarisCommunityInput_113_title")).isDisplayed();
assertFalse(titleTextfield, "Title text field present which is not expected");

It's easier to do this:

driver.findElements(By.linkText("myLinkText")).size() < 1

Please find below example using Selenium "until.stalenessOf" and Jasmine assertion. It returns true when element is no longer attached to the DOM.

const { Builder, By, Key, until } = require('selenium-webdriver');

it('should not find element', async () => {
   const waitTime = 10000;
   const el = await driver.wait( until.elementLocated(By.css('#my-id')), waitTime);
   const isRemoved = await driver.wait(until.stalenessOf(el), waitTime);

   expect(isRemoved).toBe(true);
});

For ref.: Selenium:Until Doc

For appium 1.6.0 and above

    WebElement button = (new WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//XCUIElementTypeButton[@name='your button']"))));
    button.click();

    Assert.assertTrue(!button.isDisplayed());

There is an Class called ExpectedConditions:

  By loc = ...
  Boolean notPresent = ExpectedConditions.not(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(loc)).apply(getDriver());
  Assert.assertTrue(notPresent);

You can utlilize Arquillian Graphene framework for this. So example for your case could be

Graphene.element(By.linkText(text)).isPresent().apply(driver));

Is also provides you bunch of nice API's for working with Ajax, fluent waits, page objects, fragments and so on. It definitely eases a Selenium based test development a lot.

Try this -

private boolean verifyElementAbsent(String locator) throws Exception {
    try {
        driver.findElement(By.xpath(locator));
        System.out.println("Element Present");
        return false;

    } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
        System.out.println("Element absent");
        return true;
    }
}

findElement will check the html source and will return true even if the element is not displayed. To check whether an element is displayed or not use -

private boolean verifyElementAbsent(String locator) throws Exception {

        boolean visible = driver.findElement(By.xpath(locator)).isDisplayed();
        boolean result = !visible;
        System.out.println(result);
        return result;
}

Not an answer to the very question but perhaps an idea for the underlying task:

When your site logic should not show a certain element, you could insert an invisible "flag" element that you check for.

if condition
    renderElement()
else
    renderElementNotShownFlag() // used by Selenium test

With Selenium Webdriver would be something like this:

assertTrue(!isElementPresent(By.linkText("Empresas en Misión")));

The way that I have found best - and also to show in Allure report as fail - is to try-catch the findelement and in the catch block, set the assertTrue to false, like this:

    try {
        element = driver.findElement(By.linkText("Test Search"));
    }catch(Exception e) {
        assertTrue(false, "Test Search link was not displayed");
    }