I have a selenium test in Java and I am doing some assertions like that:
assertFalse(isElementPresent(By.xpath("//td[2]/div")));
private boolean isElementPresent(By by) {
try { driver.findElement(by); return true; }
catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
return false; }
It´s the standard method Selenium is generating when export from IDE to Java Webdriver.
(Yes I want to assert that this element is not present)
I always get errors when I am testing at this above code line
Error: stale element reference: element is not attached to the DOM
But when I put a thread.sleep in front of that step it works.
The fact I don´t get is that it is enough to wait 1 milli sec.
Is it typical to wait before an assertion?
Is there another way to solve this? (Implicit wait is not helping here)
Greetings from Germany!
As you are facing staleelementreferenceexception in assertFalse() function, to negate the FalsePossitive usecase you can induce WebDriverWait with ExpectedConditions clause set to stalenessOf within assertTrue() function as follows :
Assert.assertTrue(new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.stalenessOf(driver.findElement(By.xpath("//td[2]/div")))));
Explaination
The ExpectedConditions clause stalenessOf will check for the staleness of the element identified as (By.xpath("//td[2]/div")). When the intended element becomes stale, you can check for assertTrue(boolean condition). assertTrue() would assert that a condition is true. If it isn't, an AssertionError would be raised.
assertFalse(condition)
If you still want to implement the FalsePossitive case of assertFalse(condition) raising Error you still can :
Assert.assertFalse(new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.stalenessOf(driver.findElement(By.xpath("//td[2]/div")))));
I think, timeouts are not set to WebDriver. try this
assertFalse(isElementPresent(By.xpath("//td[2]/div")));
private boolean isElementPresent(By by) {
driver.timeouts().implicitlyWait(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
driver.manage().timeouts().pageLoadTimeout(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
try { driver.findElement(by); return true; }
catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
return false; }
