IEDriver: Error determining if element is displayed

[lukeis]

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 7524

I have webdriver code like this:

wait.until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("ElementToDisappear")));

I sometimes (1 out of 10 times) get an "unknown" error from the call to isDisplayed(..)
inside the invisiblity check 
(line 459 of ExpectedConditions.java)

Here's a sample stack trace:

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Error determining if element is displayed (WARNING:
The server did not provide any stacktrace information) Command duration or timeout:
285 milliseconds Build info: version: '2.41.0', revision: '3192d8a', time: '2014-03-27
17:17:32' System info: host: 'IE9Win7', ip: '192.168.13.196', os.name: 'Windows 7',
os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.7.0_55' Session ID: 99247e66-e0a1-4074-a09e-fc64324d0c5f
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver Capabilities [{platform=WINDOWS,
javascriptEnabled=true, elementScrollBehavior=0, ignoreZoomSetting=false, enablePersistentHover=true,
ie.ensureCleanSession=false, browserName=internet explorer, enableElementCacheCleanup=true,
unexpectedAlertBehaviour=dismiss, version=9, ie.usePerProcessProxy=false, cssSelectorsEnabled=true,
ignoreProtectedModeSettings=false, requireWindowFocus=false, handlesAlerts=true, initialBrowserUrl=http://localhost:7179/,
ie.forceCreateProcessApi=false, nativeEvents=true, browserAttachTimeout=0, ie.browserCommandLineSwitches=,
takesScreenshot=true}] Command duration or timeout: 482 milliseconds Build info: version:
'2.41.0', revision: '3192d8a6c4449dc285928ba024779344f5423c58', time: '2014-03-27 11:29:39'
System info: host: 'softrek-ci01.softrekdom1.local', ip: '192.168.1.24', os.name: 'Linux',
os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64', java.version: '1.7.0_25' Session
ID: f15a6a4a-6645-4d72-897b-1aa7354ae0e6 Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver
Capabilities [{platform=WINDOWS, javascriptEnabled=true, elementScrollBehavior=0, ignoreZoomSetting=false,
enablePersistentHover=true, ie.ensureCleanSession=false, browserName=internet explorer,
enableElementCacheCleanup=true, unexpectedAlertBehaviour=dismiss, webdriver.remote.sessionid=f15a6a4a-6645-4d72-897b-1aa7354ae0e6,
version=9, ie.usePerProcessProxy=false, cssSelectorsEnabled=true, ignoreProtectedModeSettings=false,
requireWindowFocus=false, handlesAlerts=true, initialBrowserUrl=http://localhost:7179/,
ie.forceCreateProcessApi=false, nativeEvents=true, browserAttachTimeout=0, ie.browserCommandLineSwitches=,
takesScreenshot=true}]
org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Error determining if element is displayed (WARNING:
The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 285 milliseconds
Build info: version: '2.41.0', revision: '3192d8a', time: '2014-03-27 17:17:32'
System info: host: 'IE9Win7', ip: '192.168.13.196', os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch:
'x86', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.7.0_55'
Session ID: 99247e66-e0a1-4074-a09e-fc64324d0c5f
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver
Capabilities [{platform=WINDOWS, javascriptEnabled=true, elementScrollBehavior=0, ignoreZoomSetting=false,
enablePersistentHover=true, ie.ensureCleanSession=false, browserName=internet explorer,
enableElementCacheCleanup=true, unexpectedAlertBehaviour=dismiss, version=9, ie.usePerProcessProxy=false,
cssSelectorsEnabled=true, ignoreProtectedModeSettings=false, requireWindowFocus=false,
handlesAlerts=true, initialBrowserUrl=http://localhost:7179/, ie.forceCreateProcessApi=false,
nativeEvents=true, browserAttachTimeout=0, ie.browserCommandLineSwitches=, takesScreenshot=true}]
Command duration or timeout: 482 milliseconds
Build info: version: '2.41.0', revision: '3192d8a6c4449dc285928ba024779344f5423c58',
time: '2014-03-27 11:29:39'
System info: host: 'softrek-ci01.softrekdom1.local', ip: '192.168.1.24', os.name: 'Linux',
os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64', java.version: '1.7.0_25'
Session ID: f15a6a4a-6645-4d72-897b-1aa7354ae0e6
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver
Capabilities [{platform=WINDOWS, javascriptEnabled=true, elementScrollBehavior=0, ignoreZoomSetting=false,
enablePersistentHover=true, ie.ensureCleanSession=false, browserName=internet explorer,
enableElementCacheCleanup=true, unexpectedAlertBehaviour=dismiss, webdriver.remote.sessionid=f15a6a4a-6645-4d72-897b-1aa7354ae0e6,
version=9, ie.usePerProcessProxy=false, cssSelectorsEnabled=true, ignoreProtectedModeSettings=false,
requireWindowFocus=false, handlesAlerts=true, initialBrowserUrl=http://localhost:7179/,
ie.forceCreateProcessApi=false, nativeEvents=true, browserAttachTimeout=0, ie.browserCommandLineSwitches=,
takesScreenshot=true}]
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:526)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.createThrowable(ErrorHandler.java:193)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.throwIfResponseFailed(ErrorHandler.java:145)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:595)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.execute(RemoteWebElement.java:268)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.isDisplayed(RemoteWebElement.java:320)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$15.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:459)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions$15.apply(ExpectedConditions.java:455)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.FluentWait.until(FluentWait.java:208)
    at com.softrek.test.functional.dashboard.panel.Panel.waitForLoad(Panel.java:30)


I poked around in the IEDriver code and found that this error is coming from line 58
in cpp/iedriver/CommandHandlers/IsElementDisplayedCommandHandler.h
I think it's caused by the element in question being removed from the dom exactly at
the moment between GetElement and IsDisplayed; I would expect a stale element error
to be thrown instead of an unknown error.

I forked and made what I think would be a suitable improvement to better identify a
stale or not found element  when situations like this happen.

See https://github.com/amuraco/selenium/commit/7a8c291b0b24f473be6c9290a0225e6c1c4b1eba
I do not have the necessary toolchain to be able to recompile and test this, but hopefully
that commit is illustrative for the explaining what could be improved.

Reported by amuraco@softrek.com on 2014-06-19 18:05:52

[lukeis]

Reported by barancev on 2014-06-23 20:05:49

• Labels added: Browser-IE

[lukeis]

Here's a short test case (refer to the jsfiddle for a short javascript script that redraws
100 nodes every 100ms.
 @Test
 public void testIsDisplayed() {
        driver.get("http://jsfiddle.net/ARG6X/show/light/");
        for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
            try {
                driver.findElement(By.className("item" + i)).isDisplayed();
            } catch (StaleElementReferenceException | NotFoundException e) {
                //I expect these
            }
        }
  }

Reported by amuraco@softrek.com on 2014-06-23 23:28:34

[lukeis]

We're seeing this issue as well. We have some abstraction around a WebDriver in our
framework, and we're adding a temporary workaround to catch a WebDriverException for
InternetExplorer only, then try again. 

Retries are generally a horrible idea, but we need consistent tests (and can't wait
for the fix), hence the workaround. 

Reported by charles.jivesoftware on 2014-07-16 16:20:48

[lukeis]

any update from the selenium team about including this minor improvement/fix?

Reported by amuraco@softrek.com on 2014-07-28 12:31:01

[lukeis]

I've just noticed that in many cases, when this exception occurs, a warning message
popup appears in the browser. Title 'message from webpage', message <Current URL>:Permission
denied. Since after clicking OK, the browser immediately closes, I was not able to
get a JS stacktrace on this message yet.  

Reported by tim.romberg on 2014-09-02 13:44:26

[lukeis]

Any update on this issue?

Reported by amuraco@softrek.com on 2014-12-04 16:33:08

[lukeis]

I'm seeing a similar problem with the Python bindings while using explicit waiting for
an element to be visible after loading a page. I only see this issue with IEdriver
and only intermittently.

WebDriverWait(mg.driver, timeout).until(condition)
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/support/wait.py:66: in until
    value = method(self._driver)
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/support/expected_conditions.py:72:
in __call__
    return _element_if_visible(_find_element(driver, self.locator))
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/support/expected_conditions.py:90:
in _element_if_visible
    return element if element.is_displayed() else False
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py:323: in is_displayed
    return self._execute(Command.IS_ELEMENT_DISPLAYED)['value']
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webelement.py:402: in _execute
    return self._parent.execute(command, params)
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py:175: in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

self = <selenium.webdriver.remote.errorhandler.ErrorHandler object at 0x103eacc10>
response = {'class': 'org.openqa.selenium.remote.Response', 'hCode': 9221641, 'sessionId':
'c91e1ef0-5fb8-41e5-97b7-543c80053a67', 'state': 'unhandled error', ...}

    def check_response(self, response):
        """
            Checks that a JSON response from the WebDriver does not have an error.

            :Args:
             - response - The JSON response from the WebDriver server as a dictionary
               object.

            :Raises: If the response contains an error message.
            """
        status = response['status']
        if status == ErrorCode.SUCCESS:
            return
        exception_class = ErrorInResponseException
        if status in ErrorCode.NO_SUCH_ELEMENT:
            exception_class = NoSuchElementException
        elif status in ErrorCode.NO_SUCH_FRAME:
            exception_class = NoSuchFrameException
        elif status in ErrorCode.NO_SUCH_WINDOW:
            exception_class = NoSuchWindowException
        elif status in ErrorCode.STALE_ELEMENT_REFERENCE:
            exception_class = StaleElementReferenceException
        elif status in ErrorCode.ELEMENT_NOT_VISIBLE:
            exception_class = ElementNotVisibleException
        elif status in ErrorCode.INVALID_ELEMENT_STATE:
            exception_class = InvalidElementStateException
        elif status in ErrorCode.INVALID_SELECTOR \
                or status in ErrorCode.INVALID_XPATH_SELECTOR \
                or status in ErrorCode.INVALID_XPATH_SELECTOR_RETURN_TYPER:
            exception_class = InvalidSelectorException
        elif status in ErrorCode.ELEMENT_IS_NOT_SELECTABLE:
            exception_class = ElementNotSelectableException
        elif status in ErrorCode.INVALID_COOKIE_DOMAIN:
            exception_class = WebDriverException
        elif status in ErrorCode.UNABLE_TO_SET_COOKIE:
            exception_class = WebDriverException
        elif status in ErrorCode.TIMEOUT:
            exception_class = TimeoutException
        elif status in ErrorCode.SCRIPT_TIMEOUT:
            exception_class = TimeoutException
        elif status in ErrorCode.UNKNOWN_ERROR:
            exception_class = WebDriverException
        elif status in ErrorCode.UNEXPECTED_ALERT_OPEN:
            exception_class = UnexpectedAlertPresentException
        elif status in ErrorCode.NO_ALERT_OPEN:
            exception_class = NoAlertPresentException
        elif status in ErrorCode.IME_NOT_AVAILABLE:
            exception_class = ImeNotAvailableException
        elif status in ErrorCode.IME_ENGINE_ACTIVATION_FAILED:
            exception_class = ImeActivationFailedException
        elif status in ErrorCode.MOVE_TARGET_OUT_OF_BOUNDS:
            exception_class = MoveTargetOutOfBoundsException
        else:
            exception_class = WebDriverException
        value = response['value']
        if isinstance(value, basestring):
            if exception_class == ErrorInResponseException:
                raise exception_class(response, value)
            raise exception_class(value)
        message = ''
        if 'message' in value:
            message = value['message']

        screen = None
        if 'screen' in value:
            screen = value['screen']

        stacktrace = None
        if 'stackTrace' in value and value['stackTrace']:
            stacktrace = []
            try:
                for frame in value['stackTrace']:
                    line = self._value_or_default(frame, 'lineNumber', '')
                    file = self._value_or_default(frame, 'fileName', '<anonymous>')
                    if line:
                        file = "%s:%s" % (file, line)
                    meth = self._value_or_default(frame, 'methodName', '<anonymous>')
                    if 'className' in frame:
                        meth = "%s.%s" % (frame['className'], meth)
                    msg = "    at %s (%s)"
                    msg = msg % (meth, file)
                    stacktrace.append(msg)
            except TypeError:
                pass
        if exception_class == ErrorInResponseException:
            raise exception_class(response, message)
        elif exception_class == UnexpectedAlertPresentException and 'alert' in value:
            raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace, value['alert'].get('text'))
>       raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
E       WebDriverException: Message: Error determining if element is displayed (WARNING:
The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
E       Command duration or timeout: 97 milliseconds
E       Build info: version: '2.46.0', revision: '87c69e2', time: '2015-06-04 16:16:47'
E       System info: host: 'IE11Win7', ip: '10.1.15.193', os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch:
'x86', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.8.0_45'
E       Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver
E       Capabilities [{browserAttachTimeout=0, enablePersistentHover=false, ie.forceCreateProcessApi=false,
pageLoadStrategy=normal, ie.usePerProcessProxy=false, ignoreZoomSetting=false, handlesAlerts=true,
version=11, platform=WINDOWS, nativeEvents=true, ie.ensureCleanSession=false, elementScrollBehavior=0,
ie.browserCommandLineSwitches=, requireWindowFocus=false, browserName=internet explorer,
initialBrowserUrl=http://localhost:19898/, takesScreenshot=true, javascriptEnabled=true,
ignoreProtectedModeSettings=false, enableElementCacheCleanup=true, cssSelectorsEnabled=true,
unexpectedAlertBehaviour=dismiss}]
E       Session ID: 39e86eb8-a23e-4fce-84ef-ef24bd024268
E       Screenshot: available via screen
E       Stacktrace:
E           at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0 (None:-2)
E           at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance (None:-1)
E           at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance (None:-1)
E           at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.createThrowable (ErrorHandler.java:204)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.throwIfResponseFailed (ErrorHandler.java:156)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute (RemoteWebDriver.java:605)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.execute (RemoteWebElement.java:269)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.isDisplayed (RemoteWebElement.java:310)
E           at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor9.invoke (None:-1)
E           at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke (None:-1)
E           at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.support.events.EventFiringWebDriver$EventFiringWebElement$1.invoke
(EventFiringWebDriver.java:332)
E           at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy2.isDisplayed (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.support.events.EventFiringWebDriver$EventFiringWebElement.isDisplayed
(EventFiringWebDriver.java:386)
E           at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor9.invoke (None:-1)
E           at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke (None:-1)
E           at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.KnownElements$1.invoke (KnownElements.java:64)
E           at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy3.isDisplayed (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.handler.GetElementDisplayed.call (GetElementDisplayed.java:32)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.handler.GetElementDisplayed.call (GetElementDisplayed.java:1)
E           at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run (None:-1)
E           at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession$1.run (DefaultSession.java:176)
E           at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker (None:-1)
E           at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run (None:-1)
E           at java.lang.Thread.run (None:-1)

/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py:166: WebDriverException

Reported by lorenjohnson.ee on 2015-07-02 16:31:01

[lukeis]

Reported by luke.semerau on 2015-09-17 17:47:03

• Labels added: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit