FindElementByName - Element couldn't be located

Hi,

I have a test which passes in Visual Studio debug mode but fails when it is run as normal. The test is:

AppSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("UsernameTextBox").SendKeys("login");
            AppSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("PasswordTextBox").SendKeys("password");
            
            var loginButton = AppSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("LoginButton");
            loginButton.Click();

            AppSession.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(5000));
            var window = AppSession.FindElementByName(windowName);

            Assert.IsNotNull(window);

This code is run on test initialization:

private const string ServerURL = "http://127.0.0.1:4723";
        protected DesiredCapabilities AppCapabilities { get; set; }
        protected WindowsDriver<WindowsElement> AppSession { get; set; }

        protected void InitApplication()
        {
            AppCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
            AppCapabilities.SetCapability("app", $"{Environment.CurrentDirectory}\\app.exe");
            AppSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri(ServerURL), AppCapabilities);
        }

When I put breakpoint on the line var window = AppSession.FindElementByName(windowName); then test passes in debug mode. Otherwise it fails with exception System.InvalidOperationException: An element could not be located on the page using the given search parameters.

After login button is clicked the Window is maximized and it’s name gets updated.

Any help?

[brett-burkhart]

@lekso81 - here’s how I accomplished this in C# for a login workflow scenario. After login, the code waits for the main window using the DefaultWait which will try to find the element every 1 second until it finds it or until the timeout expires…

    loginWindow.FindElementByAccessibilityId("Submit").Click();

    var wait = new DefaultWait<WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>>(_session)
    {
        Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60),
        PollingInterval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1)
    };
    wait.IgnoreExceptionTypes(typeof(InvalidOperationException));

    WindowsElement mainWindow = null;

    wait.Until(driver =>
    {
        driver.SwitchTo().Window(driver.WindowHandles[0]);

        mainWindow = driver.FindElementByAccessibilityId("MainWindow");

        return mainWindow != null;
    });

…not sure if this is best approach, but it works better than Thread.Sleep() IMHO since I cannot control how long it might actually take for the login process to complete and the main window to finally open.

[lekso81]

Hi,

thank you for your responses. My tests now pass, but only a Thread.Sleep(5000) statement after Click event helps. The WaitForElementToExist function doesn’t work and always returns null. This is what I implemented using recommendation from PandaMagnus:

protected WindowsElement WaitForElementToExist(Func<string, WindowsElement> findElement, string elementName, int waitTime = 10)
        {
            WindowsElement result = null;
            var timer = new Stopwatch();
            timer.Start();
            do
            {
                try
                {
                    WindowsElement elem = findElement(elementName);
                    if (elem != null)
                    {
                        result = elem;
                        break;
                    }
                }
                catch { }

                Thread.Sleep(100);
            } while (timer.Elapsed < TimeSpan.FromSeconds(waitTime));

            return result;
        }

It is used as:

var window = this.WaitForElementToExist(AppSession.FindElementByName, windowName);
Assert.IsNotNull(window);