Selenium Webdriver Python not finding element despite correct(?) xpath

Question

I'm trying to automate some stuff using Selenium but I'm having some trouble locating a particular element. I've located literally hundreds of other elements on different pages using the same method but for some reason this element just doesn't want to be located. I think maybe it's due to the HTML on the page rather than the python script? Although I can't change the HTML so if that is the case I'm going to need to figure out a workaround somehow.

I've got the test HTML in a file in the same directory as the python called "index.html"

Here's the code for it:

<body>
<tbody>
<tr><td class="rd-xc-Kd-kl-lf"><table style="position: relative; left: 0px;" id=":a" class="rd-xc-Kd-kl" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><div class="rd-xc-Kd-Bj-Gm">Drag a photo here</div><div class="rd-xc-Kd-Bj-Fm">Or, if you prefer...</div><div id=":d"><div style="-moz-user-select: none;" role="button" class="a-b-c d-u d-u-F">Select a photo from your computer</div></div>   </td></tr></tbody></table><div id=":c" style="display:none" class="d-Zb rd-jl-Ub-Yd"><div class="rd-jl-Li">Uploading...</div><div aria-valuenow="0" aria-live="polite" role="progressbar" class="a-b-c Ub-Vb-Wb rd-d-Yb-Zb"><div style="width: 0%;" class="Ub-Vb-O"></div></div></div></td></tr>
</tbody>

</body>

(That's just some code taken from the YouTube/Google+ drag and drop image upload form. I'm trying to automate updating my cover photo every week)

and here's my test python code:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver import ActionChains
import os


driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.implicitly_wait(20)

driver.get(os.getcwd()+"\index.html")

element = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//td[@class='rd-xc-Kd-kl-lf']")
print element
print element.text

The error I get is the NoSuchElementException like this:

NoSuchElementException: Message: u'Unable to locate element:{"method":"xpath","selector":"//td[@class=\'rd-xc-Kd-...\']"}' ; Stacktrace: at FirefoxDriver.prototype.findElementInternal...

I'm not really sure where to start solving this problem. I'm tried using other selectors, such as find_element_by_id for the id "id=':a'" but that didn't work either.

Any help is appreciated.

The <table> tags are missing on the original html or did you remove them? — Ander2
– Ander2, Commented Sep 26, 2013 at 8:55
The class of your target td is perhaps dynamically generated. You can try selecting with a text content condition, such as //td[starts-with(table/tbody/tr[1]/td, "Drag a photo here")], i.e. select td cells that contain a table, in which the first tr row contains a cell starting with text "Drag a photo here". (Without the complete HTML source it's difficult to give you a correct answer) — paul trmbrth
– paul trmbrth, Commented Sep 26, 2013 at 9:03

Benjooster · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-26 15:22:57Z

2

Have you tried using the xpath checker in firefox at all? That has definitely helped me in the past. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xpath-checker/?id=1095

Also, you might try:

driver.find_element_by_class_name('rd-xc-Kd-Bj-Gm')

answered Sep 26, 2013 at 15:22

Benjooster

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1 Comment

Aayush Agrawal Over a year ago

I checked the xpath using another add-on in firefox called "firebug" it gave me a different xpath than what I was getting using inspect element from Chrome. It solved my problem!

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