Message: stale element reference: element is not a

Question

I have been trying to run the following code in three different weblinks. Code works fine on one weblink. However, it throws an error message about "Message: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document". I looked into forum's two previous threads (Python Selenium stale element fix and How to Navigate to a New Webpage In Selenium?) about the same error message but didn't get sort it out the issue. Here is my code:

driver.get('https://github.com/avassalotti')
contributions = driver.find_elements_by_xpath(".//ul[@class='filter-list small']//li") 
print(contributions)
for item in contributions:
    print (item)
    print(item.text)
    item.click()
    time.sleep(3)
    contribution = driver.find_element_by_xpath(".//*[@class='f4 text-normal mb-2']").text
    print(contribution)

Program works for this link (https://github.com/alex) and does not work for (https://github.com/agronholm, https://github.com/avassalotti).

Any advice to fix the issue.

Answer 1

To retrieve the details of contributions avoiding stale element reference you can use the following solution:

• Code Block:

  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
  
  years = []
  options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
  options.add_argument("start-maximized")
  options.add_argument('disable-infobars')
  driver=webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
  driver.get("https://github.com/agronholm")
  contributions = WebDriverWait(driver, 5).until(EC.visibility_of_all_elements_located((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='profile-timeline-year-list js-profile-timeline-year-list bg-white js-sticky float-right col-2 pl-5']/ul[@class='filter-list small']//li/a")))
  for item in contributions:
      print(item.get_attribute("innerHTML"))
      years.append(item.get_attribute("href"))
  for year in years:
      driver.get(year)
      print(WebDriverWait(driver, 5).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='js-yearly-contributions']//h2[@class='f4 text-normal mb-2']"))).get_attribute("innerHTML"))
  

• Console Output:

        2018
  
  
        2017
  
  
        2016
  
  
        2015
  
  
        2014
  
  
        2013
  
  
        2012
  
  
        2011
  
  
        2010
  
  
        2009
  
  
        260 contributions in the last year
  
  
        637 contributions in 2017
  
  
        770 contributions in 2016
  
  
        298 contributions in 2015
  
  
        239 contributions in 2014
  
  
        101 contributions in 2013
  
  
        113 contributions in 2012
  
  
        90 contributions in 2011
  
  
        16 contributions in 2010
  
  
        2 contributions in 2009
  

• Here you can find a detailed discussion on StaleElementReference Exception in PageFactory