Click links one by one with Selenium webdriver Python

Question

I make script which search for me intersted set of strings, but i have error. How i can resolve below problem:

links = driver.find_elements_by_xpath("xpath")

for x in range(0, len(links)):
    driver.implicitly_wait(2)
    links[x].click()
    try:
        driver.implicitly_wait(3)
        DO something
        driver.back()
        print("Mission completed!!")
    except (ElementNotVisibleException, NoSuchElementException):
        driver.back()
        print("No action")

Error:
selenium.common.exceptions.StaleElementReferenceException: Message: The element reference is stale. Either the element is no longer attached to the DOM or the page has been refreshed.
in line: links[x].click()

Andersson · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-23 09:08:36Z

4

Once you re-directed to new page elements from your list links become stale- you cannot use them anymore.

You can use below code instead:

links = [link.get_attribute('href') for link in driver.find_elements_by_xpath("xpath")]
for link in links:
    driver.get(link)
    # DO something

This should allow you to get list of references and get each page in a loop

answered Mar 23, 2017 at 9:08

Andersson

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2 Comments

PythonLearn Over a year ago

thx man! You teach me a lot piece of good code :) This is the best wat to do this? My website look the same like google after search with 20 links.

Andersson Over a year ago

If there is only one page with 20 links you can use it as it is, but if you have pagination (multiple pages with 20 links on each), then you might do another loop clicking Next button to append links from each page and then go through provided loop. One loop- to gather links, one- to follow links from list of references

sergiusignacius · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-23 09:08:01Z

1

What does clicking on the links do? If you navigate to another page after clicking it, then the next one in the iteration is no longer in the DOM, effectively becoming stale.

answered Mar 23, 2017 at 9:08

sergiusignacius

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