Python Selenium: waiting isn't waiting

Question

I'm designing a web scraper. At a few points I need it to wait for around 10 seconds before jumping to the next action to account for internet connection problems. I want to have a simple implicit wait.

driver.get('MY WEBSITE')

driver.implicitly_wait(10)

menu = driver.find_element_by_link_text("Export")
menu2 = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//td[text()="Data"]')

actions = ActionChains(driver)
actions.move_to_element(menu)
actions.click(menu)
actions.move_to_element(menu2)
actions.click(menu2)
actions.perform()

The only problem is: it's not waiting. I've even tried putting 20 and more secs as the implicitly_wait parameter in order to be completely sure and there was no change. It's opening the website and going directly to search for the two elements. Can anyone explain that please?

@DebanjanB, by observing it live. It opens the website and then clicks directly on the two menu elements specified. According to the implicitly_wait parameter it should wait 10 seconds. It doesn't. As I write, I even tried making it 30 seconds to be completely sure, but nothing changes. The page opens and then immediately after that the menu elements are clicked on. — BigMadAndy
– BigMadAndy, Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 16:50

Simon Crane · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-15 16:52:13Z

4

From the docs:

An implicit wait tells WebDriver to poll the DOM for a certain amount of time when trying to find any element (or elements) not immediately available. The default setting is 0. Once set, the implicit wait is set for the life of the WebDriver object.

So if the element is immediately available, it won't wait.

answered Jul 15, 2020 at 16:52

Simon Crane

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1 Comment

BigMadAndy Over a year ago

Thanks. I thought it just checks once, after the specified number of seconds.

Mahrez BenHamad · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-15 16:49:00Z

0

Try to use WebDriverWait :

E.g

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

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("http://somedomain/url_that_delays_loading")
try:
    element = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(
        EC.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, "myDynamicElement"))
    )
finally:
    driver.quit()

answered Jul 15, 2020 at 16:49

Mahrez BenHamad

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