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In Selenium, exceptions and error handling are used to handle errors and unexpected events that occur during test automation. These events can include browser errors, network errors, or errors caused by incorrect code or user input.
Common Exceptions in Selenium WebDriver
Selenium has its own set of exceptions. While developing selenium scripts, a programmer has to handle or throw those exceptions.
NoSuchElementException
NoSuchWindowException
NoSuchFrameException
NoAlertPresentException
InvalidSelectorException
ElementNotVisibleException
ElementNotSelectableException
TimeoutException
NoSuchSessionException
StaleElementReferenceException
Details
ElementNotVisibleException: If selenium tries to find an element but the element is not visible within the page
NoAlertPresentException: If a user tries to handle an alert box but the alert is not present.
NoSuchAttributeException: While trying to get attribute value but the attribute is not available in DOM.
NoSuchElementException: This exception is due to accessing an element which is not available on the page.
WebDriverException: Exception comes when a code is unable to initialize WebDriver.
Avoiding And Handling Common Exceptions
org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException
This commonly seen exception class is a subclass of NotFoundException class. The exception occurs when WebDriver is unable to find and locate elements.
Usually, this happens when tester writes incorrect element locator in the findElement(By, by) method.
Consider that in the below example, correct id for the text field was ‘firstfield’ but the tester incorrectly mentioned it as ‘fistfield’. In this case, WebDriver cannot locate the element and org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException will be thrown
driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click(); Exception Handling: try { driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click(); } catch (NoSuchElementException e)
In this case, the exception is thrown even if the element is not loaded.
Avoiding-And-Handling: Try giving a wait command.
Example: The wait command below waits 10 seconds for the presence of web element with id ‘submit’. Then it tries to click it. If the element is available but still the click fails, an exception is caught.
Using delayed time is a common practice in test automation to create a pause in between the steps. By adding a Try/Catch we ensure that the program continues even if the wait couldn’t help.
try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.id("submit")));
try {
driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click();
} catch (WebDriverException e) {
System.out.println(“An exceptional case.”);
}
} catch (TimeOutException e) {
System.out.println(“WebDriver couldn’t locate the element”);
}org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchWindowException
NoSuchWindowException comes under NotFoundException class. This is thrown when WebDriver tries to switch to an invalid window.The below code can throw org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchWindowException if the window handle doesn’t exist or is not available to switch.
driver.switchTo().window(handle_1);Avoiding-And-Handling: We would use window handles to get the set of active windows and then perform actions on the same.
In the example below, for each window handle, driver switch to is executed. Therefore chances of passing a wrong window parameter reduced.
for (String handle : driver.getWindowHandles()) {
try {
driver.switchTo().window(handle);
} catch (NoSuchWindowException e) {
System.out.println(“An exceptional case”);
}
}org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchFrameException
When WebDriver is trying to switch to an invalid frame, NoSuchFrameException under NotFoundException class is thrown.
The below code can throw org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchFrameException if a frame “frame_11” doesn’t exist or is not available.
driver.switchTo().frame(“frame_11”);Exception Handling: try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.frameToBeAvaliableAndSwitchToIt(frame_11));
try {
driver.switchTo().frame("frame_11");
} catch (WebDriverException e) {
System.out.println(“An exceptional case”);
}
} catch (TimeOutException e) {
System.out.println(“WebDriver couldn’t locate the frame”);
}
org.openqa.selenium.NoAlertPresentException
NoAlertPresentException under NotFoundException is thrown when WebDriver tries to switch to an alert, which is not available.
org.openqa.selenium.NoAlertPresentException will be thrown If below automation code calls accept() operation on Alert() class when an alert is not yet on the screen.
driver.switchTo().alert().accept();Exception Handling:
try {
driver.switchTo().alert().accept();
} catch (NoSuchAlertException e)In this case, the exception is thrown even if the alert is not loaded completely.
Avoiding-And-Handling:lways use explicit or fluent wait for a particular time in all cases where an alert is expected. If the alert is available and still there is an exception, then it is caught.
try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent());
try {
driver.switchTo().alert().accept();
} catch (NoAlertPresentException e) {
System.out.println(“An exceptional case”);
}
} catch (TimeOutException e)
System.out.println(“WebDriver couldn’t locate the Alert”);
}org.openqa.selenium.InvalidSelectorException
This subclass of NoSuchElementException class occurs when a selector is incorrect or syntactically invalid. This exception occurs commonly when XPATH locator is used.
Consider the below example:clickXPathButtonAndWait(“//button[@type=’button’][100]”);
This would throw an InvalidSelectorExeption because the XPATH syntax is incorrect.
Avoiding and Handling: To avoid this, we should check the locator used because the locator is likely incorrect or the syntax is wrong. Using Firebug to find xpath can reduce this exception.
Below code shows how to handle it using Try/Catch
try {
clickXPathButtonAndWait("//button[@type='button']");
} catch (InvalidSelectorException e) {
}org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException
ElementNotVisibleException class is a subclass of ElementNotInteractableException class. This exception is thrown when WebDriver tries to perform an action on an invisible web element, which cannot be interacted with. That is, the web element is in a hidden state.
For example, in the below code, if the type of button with id ‘submit’ is ‘hidden’ in HTML, org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException will be thrown.
driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click();
Exception Handling:
try {
driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click();
} catch (ElementNotVisibleException e)In this case, the exception is thrown even if the page has not loaded completely.
Avoiding-And-Handling: There are two ways to do this. We can either use wait for the element to get completely.
The below code waits 10 seconds for the element. If the element is visible and still exception is thrown, it is caught.
try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id(”submit”));
try {
driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).click();
} catch (WebDriverException e) {
System.out.println(“Exceptional case”);
}
} catch (TimeOutException e)
System.out.println(“WebDriver couldn’t find this element visible”);
}org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotSelectableException
This exception comes under InvalidElementStateException class. ElementNotSelectableException indicates that the web element is present in the web page but cannot be selected.
For example, the below code can throw a ElementNotSelectableException if the id “swift” is disabled.
Select dropdown = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id(“swift”)));Exception Handling:
try {
Select dropdown = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id(“swift”)));
} catch (ElementNotSelectableException e)In this case, exception is thrown even if the element becomes enabled after a while.
Avoiding-And-Handling: We can add a wait command to wait until the element becomes clickable. If there is still an exception, it is caught.
try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(ExpectedConditions. elementToBeClickable(By.id(”swift”));
try {
Select dropdown = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id("swift")));
} catch (WebDriverException e) {
System.out.println(“Exceptional case”);
}
} catch (TimeOutException e)
System.out.println(“WebDriver found that this element was not selectable.”);
}org.openqa.selenium.TimeoutException
This exception occurs when a command completion takes more than the wait time. Waits are mainly used in WebDriver to avoid the exception ElementNotVisibleException.
Sometimes test page might not load completely before next command in the program. If WebDriver tries to find an element in the webpage before the page completely loads, then exception ElementNotVisibleException is thrown. To avoid this exception, waits commands are added.
However, if the components don’t load even after the wait, the exception org.openqa.selenium.TimeoutException will be thrown.
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10,TimeUnit.SECONDS) ;
driver.get(“url” );In the above program, an implicit wait of 10 seconds is added. If the page www.softwaretestinghelp.com doesn’t load in 10 seconds, then TimeoutException will be thrown.
Avoiding and Handling: To avoid this, we can manually check the average time for a page to load and adjust the wait
Or, we can add explicit wait using JavaScript executor until the page is loaded.
In the below example, JavaScript executor is used. After page navigation, we call JavaScript return document.readyState for 20 seconds until “complete” is returned.
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30));
wait.until(webDriver -> ((JavascriptExecutor)webDriver).executeScript("return document.readyState").equals("complete"));
driver.get("url");org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchSessionException
This exception is thrown when a method is called after quitting the browser by WebDriver.quit(). This can also happen due to web browser issues like crashes and WebDriver cannot execute any command using the driver instance.
To see this exception, the code below can be executed.
driver.quit()
Select dropdown = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id(“swift”)));Avoiding and Handling: Always choose the latest stable version of browser to run Selenium Webdriver testcases.
This exception can be reduced by using driver.quit() at the completion of all tests. Do not try to use them after each test case. This can lead to issues when driver instance is null and upcoming test cases try to use it without initializing.
The below code creates WebDriver instance in the @BeforeSuite TestiNG annotation and destroys it in @AfterSuite TestiNG annotation
@BeforeSuite
public void setUp() throws MalformedURLException {
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
}
@AfterSuite
public void testDown() {
driver.quit();
}org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException
This exception says that a web element is no longer present in the web page.
This error is not the same as ElementNotVisibleException.
StaleElementReferenceException is thrown when an object for a particular web element was created in the program without any problem and however; this element is no longer present in the window. This can happen if there was a
Navigation to another page
DOM has refreshed
A frame or window switch
WebElement firstName = driver.findElement(By.id(“firstname”));
driver.switchTo().window(Child_Window);
element.sendKeys(“Aaron”);In the code above, object firstName was created and then the window was switched. Then, WebDriver tries to type ‘Aaron’ in the form field. In this case StaleElementReferenceException is thrown.
Avoiding and Handling: Confirm that we are trying to do the action in the correct window. To avoid issues due to DOM refresh, we can use Dynamic Xpath
Let’s discuss another example.
Say ‘id’ of a username field is ‘username_1’ and the XPath will be //*[@id=’firstname_1?]. When you open the page again the ‘id’ might change say to ‘’firstname _11’. In this case, the test will fail because the WebDriver could not find the element. In this case, StaleElementReferenceException will be thrown.
In this case, we can use a dynamic xpath like,
try {
driver.findElement(By.xpath(“//*[contains(@id,firstname’)]”)).sendKeys(“Aaron”);
} catch (StaleElementReferenceException e)
In the example above dynamic XPATH is used and if the exception is still found, it is caught.Conclusion
Overall, proper exception handling is an important part of Selenium automation testing, as it can help to prevent crashes and ensure the stability and reliability of the testing process.
Happy Learning!
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