Python + Selenium find_element_by_xpath returns dict

Question

-Version- Python : 3.6.8 Selenium : 3.141.0

I try this.

total_page = driver.find_element_by_xpath('Valid X Path').text
print(total_page)

but,

AttributeError : "dict' object has no attribute 'text'

I Knew.... The find_element~ function returns Dict type, not WebElement.

What could be wrong?

Answer 1

I am also facing the same issue when I am using Chromedriver. The workaround I am currently using is to use another driver (in this case Firefox works for me).

EDIT: I tried to uninstall and reinstall the latest chromedriver and that seems to fix the problem for me as well.

Answer 2

Try to avoid using

total_page = driver.find_element_by_xpath('Valid X Path').text

and change on new way, coz that one will be deprecated in the future:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
el = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "valid_xpath")
print(el.text)

anyway, I see the problem, but is not reproduced for me...

Answer 3

This error message...

AttributeError : "dict' object has no attribute 'text'

...implies that find_element_by_xpath() is returning a dict type of object which is a bit unexpected and something is wrong somewhere within your code.

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Deep Dive

This error started showing up recently in some of the usecases:

where as @titusfortner mentions find_element() was returning JSON Wire Protocol signature for elements instead of a w3c response from the driver.

This issue can be reproduced with w3c set as False as follows:

options.add_experimental_option('w3c', False)

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Recomendations

In such cases, it is recommended:

• Not to set w3c at all and go as per the default configurations.
• Do not use the desired_capabilities key
• Avoid bypassing the sandbox security unless you got a specific usecase to do so.

However, it is also important to ensure that:

• Selenium is upgraded to current release of Version 4.1.3.
• ChromeDriver is updated to current ChromeDriver v99.0 level.
• Chrome Browser is updated to current chrome= 99.0 (as per chromedriver=99.0 release notes).