Using selenium assert with wait

Question

I'm trying to use asserts in selenium java. I read that for every validation, I need to use an assert as best practice.
I stumbled upon this code example:

WebElement button = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(signInAndUpBtn));
Assert.assertTrue(button.isDisplayed(), "Sign In button should be visible on Home Page");

In this example, the assertion will never fail because it will fail previously on the wait. However, I want to combine the use of wait and assert, but I'm not sure what's the best way to do it.

It's not a best practice to assert something that can't possibly untrue — Corey Goldberg
– Corey Goldberg, Commented Nov 10 at 15:06

Idan_Z · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-11 09:17:25Z

1

The assertTrue() after a wait.until() will never run if the element is not found or not visible. That’s because wait.until(...) throws a TimeoutException when the condition is not met within the given time. So the assertion becomes redundant.

But you can control the assertion output - for example, to show a clean test failure message instead of a raw timeout exception, you can catch the TimeoutException and explicitly fail the test with your own assertion message.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));
try { 
    wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(locator));
} catch (TimeoutException e) {
    Assert.fail(message + " (Element not visible after " + timeoutSeconds + "s)");
}

hope this is help :)

answered Nov 11 at 9:17

Idan_Z

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Comments

lance-java · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-10 13:43:53Z

0

The wait API is for synchronization and the predicate must pass to avoid a TimeoutException so it's not really possible to avoid a pass/fail on the predicate.

Perhaps you could wait for something else (eg wait for the spinner to disappear)

wait.until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("spinner")));
WebElement button = driver.findElement(By.id("my-button")); // Note this may throw NoSuchElementException
Assert.assertTrue(button.isDisplayed(), "Sign in button should be visible on Home Page");

I guess if you really want to continue regardless of the exception you could do

WebElement button = null;
try {
   button = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("my-button")));
} catch (TimeoutException e) {}
Assert.assertTrue(button != null && button.isDisplayed(), "Sign In button should be visible on Home Page");

edited Nov 10 at 13:43

answered Nov 10 at 13:31

lance-java

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5 Comments

J. Script Nov 10 at 22:32

That's what i thought, in my best practice the assert is really important, for both code and report readability. Doing the try catch method was the only solution i found

lance-java Nov 11 at 8:34

Ultimately you're trying to avoid throwing a TimeoutException in order to throw an AssertionException on the next line. I'm not sure I see the benefit of what you're trying to achieve

JeffC Nov 11 at 4:10

I disagree... strongly. There's no point in putting an assert in here. If the script gets past the wait, it's clearly passed. Also, wrapping all of that in a try-catch, which slows down the script, just to put in an assert to check a box is absurd.

J. Script Nov 11 at 7:59

Can you elaborate? Lets say the purpose of my test is to validate the login button display. If it fails i want the assert to fail, not the wait. It makes the code much more readable and the allure reports handles its differently

JeffC Nov 11 at 15:29

First off, a test that only validates that a functional element is displayed is mostly useless. What if the login button is displayed but doesn't work? Don't test if it's visible, make a slightly longer test that actually logs in. If successful, you've not only validated that the button is visible but also that it works by adding a fraction of a second to the run time of the test. Also, I'm not a big fan of "pretty" reports like allure, etc. I think many people end up spending a lot of time making them pretty instead of just writing more tests. Learn how to read a stack trace and you're good.

lance-java · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-11 13:03:28Z

Perhaps you could try a WaitWrapper that returns Optional

@Slf4j
public class WaitWrapper {
   private final Wait<WebDriver> wait;

   public WaitWrapper(Wait<WebDriver> wait) { this.wait = wait }

   public <T> Optional<T> until(Function<WebDriver, T> function) {
      try {
         return Optional.of(wait.until(function));
      } catch (TimeoutException e) {
         LOG.error(e);
         return Optional.empty();
      }
   }
}

Then you could use AssertJ's Optional Support in your tests

import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
...
WaitWrapper wait = new WaitWrapper(new FluentWait<>(driver).withTimeout(...));
Optional<WebElement> buttonOption = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("my-button"));
assertThat(buttonOption)
   .as("My fantastic button") // used in assertion failure messages
   .isPresent()
   .map(WebElement::isDisplayed).hasValue(true);

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