In Selenium SendKeys() doesn't trigger auto-updating field while normal typing does

Question

I'm trying to automate box, that displays and auto updates data under it depending on what you type into it.

For example, when I type "Joh" it will display "John One" "John Two" in drop down menu, as soon as I have typed at least 3 letters into box.

When I type with keyboard it works fine, but when I use SendKeys("Joh"), no auto update happens, no data is shown.

Using waits or sending only one letter at a time didn't help.

What could cause it? Are there some other options to send text that could work in this case?

Answer 1

"At a guess, your page has JavaScript code to search dynamically on any keypress, and SendKeys does not trigger the event that triggers the search. You're going to need to find the JavaScript code that populates your dropdown menu, then work out how to force Selenium to trigger that specific event." – Kate Paulk 17 hours ago

This worked, i got event to trigger using selenium.interactions.Actions to simulate keyDown/Up (which was needed for autoupdate to trigger) after sending text with sendKeys

Using JSExecutor or EventFiringWebDriver didnt work in this case.

Heres an example in C#:

        var a = new Actions(driver);
        a.KeyDown(Keys.LeftShift).KeyUp(Keys.LeftShift);
        var s = a.Build();
        s.Perform();

Answer 2

Instead if using WebDriver use the EventFiringWebDriver and sendkeys will work without any issue and fire the text change event as well.

Answer 3

Autoupdate happens AFTER you finish typing, right? I think you need to end the string with TAB ("\t") to leave the input field, so all related events can fire.

Answer 4

I think you need to inspect to know which event fire when typing on the textbox, try to fire that event using JS or JQuery, then force Selenium execute script.

Answer 5

I reccomend after SendKeys to fire an event fireEvent(locator, blur).

From documentation:

fireEvent(locator, eventName)
Arguments:
    locator - an element locator
    eventName - the event name, e.g. "focus" or "blur"
Explicitly simulate an event, to trigger the **corresponding "onevent" handler**.

SendKeys does not do the same thing as your keyboard does and the text is injected by Selenium javascipts, but no key is really pressed.