Selenium WebDriver: random error determining if an element is visible

Question

I am using Selenium 2.2.

I am trying to click on elements that do not appear at first but become visible during the test. At first, sometimes the webdriver worked too fast, so the Elements were not visible in time, which led to ElementNotVisibleExceptions. I added WebDriverWait to make these elements visible / clickable. But now I get this random error when using

WebDriverWait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("id"))); 

for

 WebDriverWait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("id"))); 

here is stacktrace

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Error determining if element is displayed (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information) Command duration or timeout: 219 milliseconds Build info: version: '2.20.0', revision: '16008', time: '2012-02-27 19:03:59' System info: os.name: 'Windows XP', os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '5.1 build 2600 Service Pack 3', java.version: '1.6.0' Driver info: driver.version: RemoteWebDriver at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:44) at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27) at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:516) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.createThrowable(ErrorHandler.java:170) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.throwIfResponseFailed(ErrorHandler.java:123) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:438) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.isDisplayed(RemoteWebElement.java:280) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions.elementIfVisible(ExpectedConditions.java:136) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions.access$1(ExpectedConditions.java:135) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$4.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:106) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$4.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:1) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$11.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:252) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$11.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:1) at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.FluentWait.until(FluentWait.java:201) at MyTest.myTest(MyTest.java:xx) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:600) at junit.framework.TestCase.runTest(TestCase.java:168) at junit.framework.TestCase.runBare(TestCase.java:134) at junit.framework.TestResult$1.protect(TestResult.java:110) at junit.framework.TestResult.runProtected(TestResult.java:128) at junit.framework.TestResult.run(TestResult.java:113) at junit.framework.TestCase.run(TestCase.java:124) at junit.framework.TestSuite.runTest(TestSuite.java:243) at junit.framework.TestSuite.run(TestSuite.java:238) at junit.framework.TestSuite.runTest(TestSuite.java:243) at junit.framework.TestSuite.run(TestSuite.java:238) at org.junit.internal.runners.JUnit38ClassRunner.run(JUnit38ClassRunner.java:83) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:45) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:460) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:673) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:386) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:196)

This happens only occasionally. Ignoring a WebDriverException may solve this problem, but it doesn't seem like a clean solution. This cannot be a timeout problem, because I tried to set a timeout limit of one minute or more, and it still doesn't work after a couple of milliseconds.

Has anyone got a clean solution?

Thank you in advance

Edit: by the way. I am using InternetExplorerDriver

Answer 1

Make sure the page has only one modalPanel. Try to get a visible panel (java):

 public WebElement getVisibleModalPanel(){ for (WebElement element : driver.findElements(By.cssSelector('csslocator'))) { if (element.isDisplayed()) { return element; } } return null; } 

Realize the expectation of such a thing:

 (new WebDriverWait(getDriver(), timeout, 400)).ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class).until( new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() { @Override public Boolean apply(WebDriver driver) { for (WebElement element : driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(locator))) { if (element.isDisplayed()) { return true; } } return false; } });