Why can't I "send_keys" to text box with selenium? AttributeError: 'NoneType'

Question

I am having serious difficulty filling in text boxes on this website. The element is type="text". It keeps returning as AttributeError: 'NoneType'.

I used a try clause to see if it was actually being clicked on, and it is not erring out. In addition, the textbox is selected and when I leave it as my front window, I can type in the text box without clicking anything after the error occurs.

I tried extending the pause before the click by 1 minute to no effect.

I tried selecting by xpath, same results.

I tried clicking the object, pausing 10 seconds, and clicking the object again. Nothing.

my code:

def Search(driver,productID):
    print "Initiate Search"

    #Fill in current product ID
    #/html/body/table[3]/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/div[2]/form/table/tbody/tr/td/input

    try: inputElement = driver.find_element_by_name("CategoryName").click()
    except: print "could not click"
    print "Clicked Product ID"

    time.sleep(5)
    inputElement.send_keys(str(productID))  ##Line 105 - Errors out here

Error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/ME/Documents/PYTHON/Creating Static Attributes/StaticWAttributes_1.py", line 246, in <module>
    Search(driver,productID)
  File "/Users/ME/Documents/PYTHON/Creating Static Attributes/StaticWAttributes_1.py", line 105, in Search
    inputElement.send_keys(str(productID))
  AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'send_keys'

Last Output Print Statement:

Initiate Search
Clicked Product ID

HTML:

  <table cellSpacing="0" cellPadding="0" border="0">
        <tr>
          <td class="actionrow">Search Products by  
          <select name="categorytype">
                        <option selected value="name">Product Name or Description</option>
                        <option  value="catid">Product ID</option>
                  </select> <input type="text" name="CategoryName" value="" size="20"><? <<-- I AM TRYING TO CLICK THIS ?>
                  &nbsp;in&nbsp;
                  <select name="ddlproductType" ID="Select2">
                    <option selected value="100">All</option>
                        <option  value="1">Versioned</option>

                            <option  value="7">Variable</option>

                        <option  value="5">Static with Attributes</option>
            <option  value="11">PowerPoint</option>
                  </select>&nbsp;
                <input type="submit" value="Go" name="action" onClick="javascript:resetAll();"> 
          </td>
        </tr>
  </table>

Richard · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-21 18:00:09Z

9

Your problem is here:

    try: inputElement = driver.find_element_by_name("CategoryName").click()

I'm not sure what inputElement is in the case of python, but I'm guessing it's still a null. I don't think click() returns anything.

If you change it to this, it should work:

try: inputElement = driver.find_element_by_name("CategoryName")
    inputElement.click()

answered Mar 21, 2014 at 18:00

Richard

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2 Comments

ExperimentsWithCode Over a year ago

Wow, that one flew right over my head. Much appreciated. I can't accept your answer for a couple more minutes, but it's coming.

alexis Over a year ago

Comment: Python often does this, by design, to discourage the building of very complex expressions. E.g. you're not allowed to say if ((x = findelement()) != Null), sorting a list in place returns Null, etc. Looks like Selenium is adopting the same style.

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