Python with selenium: unable to locate element which really exists

Question

I've been trying to fill input:

<input id="PASSFIELD1" class="logField" type="password" onkeyup="next(this, event);" maxlength="1" autocomplete="off" name="PASSFIELD1"></input>

To do this, I have to find this element.

I tried below things:

1. pass1=driver.find_element_by_name("PASSFIELD1")

2. pass1=driver.find_element_by_id("PASSFIELD1")

3. pass1= driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[4]/div/div/div[2]/div/form/div[3]/table/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]/div/input[1]") (path from firebug)

4. Even wait 100 seconds for it

self.wait.until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH,"/html/body/div[4]/div/div/div[2]/div/form/div[3]/table/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]/div/input[1]")))

self.assertTrue(self.driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[4]/div/div/div[2]/div/form/div[3]/table/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]/div/input[1]"))

selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: 'Unable to locate element: (...)

Do you know what I am doing wrong?

Answer 1

You should wait for an element before trying to interact with it. There are generally two options and do not mix use of the two.

1. Use implicit waits

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.implicitly_wait(10) # seconds
driver.get("http://somedomain/url_that_delays_loading")
myDynamicElement = driver.find_element_by_id("myDynamicElement")

2. Use explicit waits

from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 10)
element = wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.ID, 'someid')))