Question

I’m running approx 30 scripted test cases (each test case is a script) in series and there are often failures that include: cannot identify specified element, element not present.

I’ve already added a lot of different methods to wait for an element to show up. Sometimes when it is clearly there, I guess Selenium has a hard time trying to find the element’s id ?

I’ve included several

do{
    if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0"){
    selenium.click("viewResultForm:refresh_button");
    }
}while (!selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0"));

and

if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0"))
        selenium.isVisible("id=resultTable_0_0");

and

if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0_1_to"))
    selenium.click("resultTable_0_0_1_to");

always checking if an element is even present before doing something. This probably has a huge impact on performance, but for now I just want my scripts to run error-free, completely robust. I have this piece of code:

do{
    if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0")){
    selenium.click("viewResultForm:refresh_button");
    }
}while (!selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0"));

        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=resultTable_0_0"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=resultTable_0_0");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentDetailViewType"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentDetailViewType");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentSearchDateType"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentSearchDateType");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentLegalEntity"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentLegalEntity");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentRollupBy"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentRollupBy");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentSecurityAltId"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentSecurityAltId");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentSecurityAltIdType"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentSecurityAltIdType");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentDepoViewType"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentDepoViewType");
        if(selenium.isElementPresent("id=viewResultForm:currentBusinessDate"))
            selenium.isVisible("id=viewResultForm:currentBusinessDate");

        System.out.println("Success T13001");
        selenium.stop(); 

Even this will error out !!! and it wont fall through to reach selenium.stop and ‘fake’ a success. What can I do to build on the robustness of my scripts? Any help would be appreciated.

I’m using Selenium 2.20.0 on IE 8.

Answer 1

As per your question if its the problem of not finding the id of locators then try using other locators like css and xpath.

Apply selenium.waitforpagetoload when ever you move to a new page or you open a url.

If you are working on an ajax based application then selenium.waitforcondition would be gud to you.

Whereever you think that a locator may take some time to appear after some operation,Use proper waits for those elements.