Selenium WebDriver - handle StaleElementReferenceException (Python)

Question

I am writing Python code using Selenium which clicks on a button on a web page. After the button is clicked, the button changes to something else. My code works perfectly fine, but Selenium is misinterpreting this as a problem. I'm attempting to ignore the exception and move on but nothing I've tried has worked.

from selenium.common.exceptions import StaleElementReferenceException

try:
    browser.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'SomeButtonText')]").click()
except StaleElementReferenceException:
    pass

What can I do to ignore the exception and move on? My code WORKS with what I'm trying to do, but after a couple seconds, the exception is thrown.

Message: Element not found in the cache - perhaps the page has changed since it was looked up

Here is the extremely messy information from the Ubuntu Terminal:

File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py", line 107, in get_attribute
    resp = self._execute(Command.GET_ELEMENT_ATTRIBUTE, {'name': name})
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py", line 454, in _execute
    return self._parent.execute(command, params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 201, in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 181, in check_response
    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.StaleElementReferenceException: Message: Element not found in the cache - perhaps the page has changed since it was looked up
Stacktrace:
    at fxdriver.cache.getElementAt (resource://fxdriver/modules/web-element-cache.js:9351)
    at Utils.getElementAt (file:///tmp/tmp24d8CK/extensions/[email protected]/components/command-processor.js:8978)
    at WebElement.getElementAttribute (file:///tmp/tmp24d8CK/extensions/[email protected]/components/command-processor.js:12019)
    at DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_/h (file:///tmp/tmp24d8CK/extensions/[email protected]/components/command-processor.js:12534)
    at DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_ (file:///tmp/tmp24d8CK/extensions/[email protected]/components/command-processor.js:12539)
    at DelayedCommand.prototype.execute/< (file:///tmp/tmp24d8CK/extensions/[email protected]/components/command-processor.js:12481)

Could you post the complete traceback and on which line an error is thrown? Thanks — alecxe
– alecxe, Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 3:40
@alecxe Thanks for your reply. I posted the information from the console but I don't know if that will help much. — 43.52.4D.
– 43.52.4D., Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 3:50
Thanks for the update. But, on which line in your code the error happens? — alecxe
– alecxe, Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 3:52
@alecxe I found the bug in my code. Very simple mistake. The line at which I was clicking the button was at the end of a loop. The line was actually executing correctly and went back to the top of the loop where another stale reference problem was happening. Thanks for your help though! — 43.52.4D.
– 43.52.4D., Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 5:08
Sure, please post it as an answer and accept as soon as you can to resole the topic. Thanks for sharing. — alecxe
– alecxe, Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 5:08

43.52.4D. · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-15 05:11:45Z

2

I found the answer to my problem.

The code here:

try:
    browser.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'SomeButtonText')]").click()
except StaleElementReferenceException:
    pass

Was executing at the end of a for loop. I completely missed the fact that it returned to the beginning of the loop where I had a separate problem with a Stale reference exception.

answered Dec 15, 2015 at 5:11

43.52.4D.

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Comments

fahad · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-15 05:24:07Z

This issue is because Html is loading and client is still receiving updates from server

how ever i made a solution for problem you can simply use my custom wait before clicking . call this function

 public static void waitForElementPresent(final By by, int timeout,WebDriver driver)

After this if you are using browser other then chrome then call Scroll to that object this would fix you problem Code

public static void waitForElementPresent(final By by, int timeout,WebDriver driver) { 

        waitForPageLoad(driver);
        WebDriverWait wait = (WebDriverWait)new WebDriverWait(driver,40).ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class); 
        /*  wait.until(new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>(){ 
            @Override 
            public Boolean apply(WebDriver webDriver) { 
              WebElement element = webDriver.findElement(by); 
              return element != null && element.isDisplayed(); 
            } 
          }); */
          try {
            Thread.sleep(1000);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
           wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(by));
          wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(by));
          WebDriverWait wait2 = new WebDriverWait(driver, 40);
          wait2.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(by));

        }
    //wait for page to laod 
    public static void waitForPageLoad(WebDriver driver) {
        ExpectedCondition<Boolean> pageLoadCondition = new
            ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() {
                public Boolean apply(WebDriver driver) {
                    return ((JavascriptExecutor)driver).executeScript("return document.readyState").equals("complete");
                }
            };
        WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 30);
        wait.until(pageLoadCondition);
    }

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