How to fix intermittent typing problems with send_keys?

Question

See attached. Once in awhile (say, one in several hundred test runs), I'll have something like this happen:

What it should have typed was AttachmentCount:0.

Another example where it is retyping "very" and this time with the wrong case:

I have also seen it happen where it stops typing in the middle of a send_keys() phrase I'm sending (see example screenshot in a comment below).

The function I'm using is below. I'm using Selenium 2.23 on Windows 7 with Firefox 13. Any ideas on why this happens? I can re-run the test and it'll be fine. I have 113 other searches in this test that typed out fine.

def do_find(self, term):
    """ interacts with the search form """
    textbox = self.browser.find_element_by_id('query')
    textbox.clear()  # for when we loop and search more than once
    tab = util.webdriver.common.keys.Keys.TAB
    textbox.send_keys(term, tab)  # tab closes autocomplete popup
    findb = self.browser.find_element_by_id('findbutton')
    findb.click()

Answer 1

I found the same error and couldn't isolate it either. I basically wrote a wrapper for the sendkeys function which would check that the value entered was correct or would retry for 2 seconds. My code is in java but it would be easy to write it in another language. I see you have basically done the same thing though.

Answer 2

Interesting. I'd probably create a test that just navigates to the page and enters text into that texbox and repeat it a hundred times then watch the execution and see if I can catch it in the act to see what might be going on. It could be something to do with auto-complete, especially if that took focus away from the textbox. That could cause selenium to switch focus back to the textbox and retry.

Answer 3

Well, this is more of a workaround than a true fix or answer -- and I'll award the bounty to any better solution -- but here's what I ended up doing. It checks to make sure it typed what I wanted it to type, and retries if not.

def do_find(self, term):
""" interacts with the search form """
for _ in xrange(5):
    textbox = self.browser.find_element_by_id('query')
    textbox.clear()  # for when we loop and search more than once
    textbox.send_keys(term)
    close_ac = self.browser.find_element_by_class_name('project_name')
    close_ac.click()  # close autocomplete so WebDriver can see Find button
    elem = self.browser.find_element_by_id('query')
    actual_text = elem.get_attribute('value')
    if actual_text == term:
        findb = self.browser.find_element_by_id('findbutton')
        findb.click()
        break
    else:
        pass  # retry because of rare send_keys() problem