selenium cannot find element using python

Question

This is the html I got and I'm trying to select this fsuser and use send_keys to input some value. I tried this:

input_username = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//table/tbody/tr[2]/td/form/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[2]/input")

But is says:

NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"xpath","selector":"//table/tbody/tr[2]/td/form/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[2]/input"}
(Session info: chrome=99.0.4844.74)

HTML1 HTML2

Answer 1

You can directly use name attribute, no need for the absolute xpath.

try this:

Css:

input[name='fsuser']

use it like this:

input_username = WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[name='fsuser']")))
input_username.send_keys('some name')

OR

xpath:

//input[@name='fsuser']

use it like this:

input_username = WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//input[@name='fsuser']")))
input_username.send_keys('some name')

Imports:

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Update:

NoSuchElementException:

Please check in the dev tools (Google chrome) if we have unique entry in HTML-DOM or not.

xpath that you should check :

//input[@name='fsuser']

Steps to check:

Press F12 in Chrome -> go to element section -> do a CTRL + F -> then paste the xpath and see, if your desired element is getting highlighted with 1/1 matching node.

If this is unique //input[@name='fsuser'] then you need to check for the below conditions as well.

1. Check if it's in any iframe/frame/frameset.

   Solution: switch to iframe/frame/frameset first and then interact with this web element.

2. Check if it's in any shadow-root.

   Solution: Use driver.execute_script('return document.querySelector to have returned a web element and then operates accordingly.

3. Make sure that the element is rendered properly before interacting with it. Put some hardcoded delay or Explicit wait and try again.

   Solution: time.sleep(5) or

   WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='vaadin-text-field-container']//descendant::input[@part='value' and starts-with(@aria-labelledby, 'vaadin-text-field-input')]"))).send_keys("test")

4. If you have redirected to a new tab/ or new windows and you have not switched to that particular new tab/new window, otherwise you will likely get NoSuchElement exception.

   Solution: switch to the relevant window/tab first.

5. If you have switched to an iframe and the new desired element is not in the same iframe context then first switch to default content and then interact with it.

   Solution: switch to default content and then switch to respective iframe.