Not able to click Search button and also select the option from the drop down Getting .ElementNotVisibleException

Question

Not able to click Search button and also select the option from the drop down Getting:

org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException: Element is not currently visible and so may not be interacted with

Reason: After selecting the value from the dropdown list the cursor remains in the dropdown text box and is not going to the Search button

Can someone please let me know what can be done

WebElement Searchbox = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//span[contains(normalize-space(),'Search')]/preceding::button[contains(@onclick,'mainForm:messages2')]"));
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver,50); 
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//span[contains(normalize-space(),'Search')]/preceding::button[contains(@onclick,'mainForm:messages2')]")));

Searchbox.click();

below is the Html code: - I am trying to click on the Search button

<td role="gridcell" class="ui-panelgrid-cell" colspan="2">
   <button id="mainForm:j_idt441" name="mainForm:j_idt441" class="ui-button ui-widget ui-state-default ui-corner-all ui-button-text-only" 
           onclick="PrimeFaces.ab({s:&quot;mainForm:j_idt441&quot;,u:
                    &quot;mainForm:projectG
                    groupsTable mainForm:messages2&quot;});
                    return false;" type="submit" role="button" aria-disabled="false">
      <span class="ui-button-text ui-c">Search</span>
   </button>
</td>

Answer 1

WebElement Searchbox = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//span[contains(text(),'Search')]/ancestor::button")));

Searchbox.click();

webdriver wait returns the element , so don't find it before using wait . ALso change normalize text to text() or string()