Selenium XPATH Returns Empty Set?

Question

I visited: http://132.247.137.206/web/guest/en/websys/webArch/mainFrame.cgi

and wrote the following in python (after waiting for page to load)

try:
    tmp = driver.find_elements(By.XPATH, '//*[text()="Login"]')
    print(tmp)
except Exception as e:
    print('NONE FOUND!')

But all I see being printed is:

[]

Why is that?

I'm expecting the above code to return ay item in the page link or button that has the word Login.

undetected Selenium · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-11 19:29:29Z

1

[] denotes empty list as the locator strategy you have used doesn't identifies the element within the DOM Tree.

Deep Dive

The element with text as Login is within an <frame>:

login

Solution

To identify the element you have to:

Induce WebDriverWait for the desired frame to be available and switch to it.
Induce WebDriverWait for the desired element to be clickable.

You can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using XPATH:

driver.get("http://132.247.137.206/web/guest/en/websys/webArch/mainFrame.cgi")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it((By.XPATH,"//frame[@title='Header Area']")))
print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//span[text()='Login']"))))

Note : You have to add the following imports :

 from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
 from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
 from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Console Output:

<selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement.WebElement (session="224f5eafafd1c7422d408810378cd6ec", element="d4e316c3-3187-42e9-b1d2-054cbab92f0b")>

answered Apr 11, 2022 at 19:29

undetected Selenium

194k44 gold badges304 silver badges387 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Roi Over a year ago

Thank you, what can be done for general case? Ie. looking for any button or link with the text login? I don't know what the frame name will be either

undetected Selenium Over a year ago

Sounds to be a different question all together. Feel free to raise a new question as per your new requirement.

Roi Over a year ago

Plus question, why do I need to switch to the frame first? why can't selenium just find it as if it was outside frame

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Selenium XPATH Returns Empty Set?

1 Answer 1

Deep Dive

Solution

3 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Deep Dive

Solution

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related