How to Resolve the Stale Element Reference Exception in Selenium WebDriver?

Stale Element Reference Exception in Selenium WebDriver: Troubleshooting and Resolution

Selenium WebDriver's Stale Element Reference Exception occurs when a previously obtained WebElement reference becomes invalid due to changes in the underlying DOM. This issue arises when elements are updated or removed dynamically, rendering the existing references obsolete.

Causes of the Exception

The exception can occur when:

• The DOM is manipulated dynamically, such as replacing elements using JavaScript.
• AJAX requests update the page, leading to element removal or recreation.
• The browser engine itself makes changes to the DOM for performance optimizations.

Example Code and Exception Details

The provided code snippet experiences the exception during element recognition because the DOM changes when a dialog box opens and closes:

WebElement textElement = driver.findElement(By.name("createForm:dateInput_input"));

The error trace displays the following message:

org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document

Solution: Refresh the WebElement Reference

To resolve the issue, you need to refresh the WebElement reference after any DOM changes that could invalidate it. Commonly used solutions include:

• Explicitly wait until the element becomes visible again using ExpectedConditions:

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.name("createForm:dateInput_input")));

• Use JavaScript executor to locate the element directly:

WebElement textElement = (WebElement) ((JavascriptExecutor) driver)
    .executeScript("return document.querySelector('input[name=\"createForm:dateInput_input\"]')");

• Refresh the page using driver.navigate().refresh() and locate the element again.

Additional Tips

• Avoid using WebElement references across multiple actions. Refresh references after each action.
• Regularly check for stale element exceptions during test execution and include recovery mechanisms.
• Use WebDriver's built-in mechanisms for handling dynamic DOM changes, such as ExpectedConditions and the WebDriverWait class.

The above is the detailed content of How to Resolve the Stale Element Reference Exception in Selenium WebDriver?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!