Can not catch NoSuchElementException with PageFactory (Selenium WebDriver)

Question

My question is like Problem catching Selenium Webdriver NoSuchElementException but there is no answer to resolve an issue.

Class SmallLoginLocators:

public class SmallLoginLocators {
    public final String PASSWORD1 = "__nothing";
    public final String PASSWORD2 = "password";
    @FindBy (name = PASSWORD1)
    public WebElement passwordField1;
    @FindBy (name = PASSWORD2)
    public WebElement passwordField2;
}

There is password text field with different locators on two pages. Test can start from any of these pages. So I try to access that webelement:

public WebElement getPasswordField() {
    SmallLoginLocators slogin = PageFactory.initElements(wd, SmallLoginLocators.class);
    WebElement password;
    try {
        password = slogin.passwordField1;
    } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
        password = slogin.passwordField2;
    }
    return password;
}

getPasswordField() returnes NoSuchElementException on line

password = slogin.passwordField1;

BUT!!! that is not handled by catch (NoSuchElementException e).

Q1: Why?

Q2: How to resolve?

Note: NoSuchElementException I get is from org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException and imports are valid. I suspectthat the issue is in PageFactory.initElements source, but my junior knowledge of java has not given me any chance to understand.

Answer 1

My answer is not directly to your question. It is advice. You should not use try catch for logic realization. Program languages (Java, c#, python etc) have if ... else statements. And you can use them for your problem.

not debugged code, simply for example

if(slogin.passwordField1.Existed)
{ 
  return slogin.passwordField1;
} 
else 
{
  return slogin.passwordField2;
}

You can find how realize existed property in Internet (it is easy) and you will levelup you developer skills

Answer 2

if you have different elements locators and you want to acces to them in single way, you can use @FindAll anotations:

@FindAll(value = { 
        @FindBy(css = " ... "), 
        @FindBy(css = " ... ") 
        })
List<WebElement> elementsList;

(first element from the list will be used)

Answer 3

This line:

password = slogin.passwordField1;

Is a simple assignment. It's not the line that throws the exception. PageFactory will attempt to lazy-initialize the field when it is used, not just referenced; I'm not 100% clear on whether assignment is considered a use, but it's very likely that it's the return statement that's throwing instead. For this use case, I'm thinking letting PageFactory initialize your field is doing more harm than good. I'd say, use a traditional find here.

It can be written entirely without exceptions that way, too:

public WebElement getPasswordField() {
    SmallLoginLocators slogin = new SmallLoginLocators();
    List<WebElement> candidates = wd.find(By.Name(slogin.PASSWORD1));
    if (candidates.size <= 0) candidates = wd.find(By.Name(slogin.PASSWORD2));
    return candidates.get(0);
}

Answer 4

When we look at the try and catch we can see that we normally use catch (Exception e); but in the case of Webdriver we will have to use catch (Throwable e).

So try to use this:

public WebElement getPasswordField() {
    SmallLoginLocators slogin = PageFactory.initElements(wd, SmallLoginLocators.class);
    WebElement password;
    try {
        password = slogin.passwordField1;
    } catch (**Throwable** e) {
        password = slogin.passwordField2;
    }
    return password;
}

This resolved my issue.