Unable to click on html link using Selenium WebDriver

Question

I have an requirement of clicking on a link . I am using click() method to click on link by providing the locators and etc.., after click no action was taken place. When I see the html code anchor tag href attribute is having

"javascript:void(0)"

So there is no action taken place.The id of anchor tag is binded with java script and from there it is submitting the request.

How can I handle this scenario from selenium?

Answer 1

In my code, Anchor tag is having the href attribute as below

"javascript:void(0)

but when we click on anchor tag form was submitting though javascript. So in this case when click() to click on link will not work. we should use the submit().

Finally this issue is resolved with following code

driver.findElement(By.xpath(xpath)).submit();

Answer 2

You can try triggering the Javascript event by using the Javascript native click:

WebElement el = webDriver.findElement(...);
JavascriptExecutor exec = (JavascriptExecutor) webDriver;
exec.executeScript("arguments[0].click()", el);

Although I'm still convinced that a Selenium click will trigger Javascript code. ;)

Answer 3

"javascript:void(0)" means that the link wouldn't work. It'll do nothing. That is why no action is taking place when you click on it.

I have seen many developers do this when they don't want the link to "navigate" anywhere, though it's not the right practice.

You can read about this here.

Answer 4

This worked for me after spending hours fighting with javascript:void(0)

import os
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display

display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
display.start()
driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get('https://www.website.com')
print (driver.title)

elem = driver.find_element_by_css_selector("something-here")
important_is_needed = elem.location_once_scrolled_into_view
elem.click()
time.sleep(1)

See this for Linux chrome install for selenium https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8255929/running-webdriver-chrome-with-selenium

Note this comment "you can install chromium-chromdriver package (e.g. with apt-get) and add the path of the chromedriver file to the PATH shell variable PATH="${PATH}":/usr/lib/chromium-browser/ If you add this to your .bashrc, you won't need to set it each time you want to test with selenium" Thanks @Arpad Horvath

My install commands.

sudo pip install pyvirtualdisplay

sudo apt-get install xvfb

sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver

Also note the selenium ide firefox plugin can help. Recording with the ide will tell you the correct string to use for find_element_by_css_selector. Also, if this is new to you, firefox developer inspector tool and chrome inspect element tool are invaluable.