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I am trying to access PenFed in order to get my current outstanding amount. I have done quite a bit of research and unfortunately, I am still stumped. I am using Python Selenium and I am trying to click on the initial login button on the side in order to see the username field. This is the element's HTML code:

<a href="https://www.penfed.org/" class="pfui-button-login login-slide-button pfui-button pfui-btn-tertiary-dark-blue-outline" id="mobile-login" data-di-id="#mobile-login">Login</a>

When I try to run the following code:

driver.find_element_by_id("mobile-login").click()

I get the following error:

selenium.common.exceptions.ElementNotVisibleException: Message: element not interactable

Even when I try to use WebDriver Wait functions such as these:

try:
    WebDriverWait(driver, 5).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.ID, "mobile-login"))).click()
except ElementNotVisibleException:
    WebDriverWait(driver, 5).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.ID, "mobile-login"))).click()

No matter how long I make them wait, I get a timeout message:

raise TimeoutException(message, screen, stacktrace) selenium.common.exceptions.TimeoutException: Message:

All of my research says that invoking a wait function should fix it but it doesn't work for me. I also read that there might be an image overlay on top of the element that I would have to invoke before clicking on the button, but I didn't see anything in the website code as well. If I am testing it out, the only way that I am able to click on the button through code is if I physically click on it first, so I am unaware of anything else I can use. Thank you in advance for the help!

UPDATE: I have discovered that the following code works for me:

element = driver.find_element_by_id("mobile-login")
driver.execute_script("$(arguments[0]).click();", element)

But I do not know what the execute_script actually does. Can someone explain that piece of code works or if any other alternatives work for them?

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  • I am confused a bit, are you trying to interact this element? <button class="pfui-button login-slide-button pfui-button-login dtm-global-nav" data-id="Open Log In Drawer" data-component="globalnavl1" type="button"> Log In </button> Commented Feb 3, 2019 at 16:09
  • @Rajagopalan Yes, someone else in this thread pointed out that by adjusting my browser I would be able to see the actual login button ID, but I was only seeing the ID for mobile-login. Thanks! Commented Feb 5, 2019 at 21:06

3 Answers 3

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The code you specified is JQuery. execute_script(p1, p2) runs a js script, where p1 is the script (in your case a JQuery line that clicks the element) and p2 is the desired element. It seems like you shouldn't need p2 if arguments[0] is equal to "element," but I'm not totally sure.

One potential fix is to use a counter for the number of times you clicked the element. If the counter reaches a certain number and the page doesn't change (you can check by finding a unique element/value on your current page), then you know it's not clickable.

Good luck!

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Thank you! I think that was more of a side note, I don't think that the execute_script was attacking the root of the problem, just the branch. I found it on stackoverflow and it worked, but this gives me some good background on the function!
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The desired element is a dynamic element so to locate the element you have to induce WebDriverWait for the element to be clickable and you can use the following solution:

  • Code Block:

    from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

options = Options()
options.add_argument('start-maximized')
options.add_argument('--disable-extensions')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path=r'C:\WebDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
driver.get('https://www.penfed.org/')
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "button.pfui-button.login-slide-button.pfui-button-login.dtm-global-nav[data-id='Open Log In Drawer']"))).click()

  • Browser Snapshot:

penfed.org

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I was using the webdriver wait function, but I was still encountering problems. I think the main thing was that I was looking for the wrong button ID, so I was encountering timeout exceptions every time I ran a webdriver wait.
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The link you are attempting to click is for the mobile site and is not visible if you are viewing the site at desktop resolutions. If you shrink your browser down until it changes layout, you will see the LOGIN button appear that corresponds to that link. That's why you are getting the ElementNotVisibleException.

To your second question, the reason that using .execute_script() works is that it executes JS directly and can click on anything... hidden or not. Selenium was designed to interact with the page as a user would so it won't let you click invisible elements, etc. If you are intending for your script to act like a user, you will want to avoid using .execute_script() because it allows you to do things on the page that a user cannot do.

If you want to log in like a desktop user would, you need to click the "LOG IN" button using the CSS selector below

button[data-id='Open Log In Drawer']

That will open a side panel where you can enter your username, etc. and log in. FYI... you will likely need a wait to give the panel a chance to open before continuing the log in process.

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