Exercise on safely waiting for unstable web elements with WebDriver.

method1.java

// this method is not effective.  the while loop wont throw an error but
// findElements is not guaranteed to return a non-stale element
public static WebElement safeGetElementByLocator( By locator ) {
  int weWait = 10;
  int cycle = 1; // 10 cycles is 280
  List<WebElement> weList = driver.findElements( locator );
  while ( weList.size()==0 && weWait <= 280 ) {			
    staticlogger.info("DOM not ready.  Trying again for " + weWait + " more seconds.");
    staticlogger.info( "[" + cycle + "] Searching for element...");
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait( weWait, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
    weList = driver.findElements( locator ); 
    weWait +=30;
    cycle +=1;
  }
  if ( weList.size() > 1 ) staticlogger.info("WARNING: Locator matched more elements than expected.");
  WebElement we = null;
  try {
    we = weList.get(0);
  } catch ( Exception e ) {
    staticlogger.info( e.getMessage() );
  }
  return we;
}

method2.java

// this method is not effective
// an exception throws us out of the loop
public static void clickByLocator( By locator ) {
  boolean search = true;
  int weWait = 30;
  int cycle = 1;
  while ( search && cycle <= 3 ) {			
    try {
      driver.findElement( locator ).click();
      search = false; // stop searching if no error
    } catch ( StaleElementReferenceException sere ) {
      staticlogger.info( "\n\n\nElement was stale.  Trying again.\n" + sere.getMessage() + "\n" + 
            sere.getCause().getLocalizedMessage() + "\n\n" );
      //sere.printStackTrace();				
    }
    weWait +=30; // increase wait value for next cycle
    cycle +=1;
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait( weWait, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
  }
  driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait( DEFAULT_IMPLICIT_WAIT, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
  staticlogger.info("Finished safe click.");
}

method3.java

// I gleamed this method from the Selenium Google forum
// notice the .ignoring fluent method. this is a game changer.
public void waitForElementPresent(final By by, int timeout){ 
  WebDriverWait wait = (WebDriverWait)new WebDriverWait(driver,timeout)
                  .ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class); 
  wait.until(new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>(){ 
    @Override 
    public Boolean apply(WebDriver webDriver) { 
      WebElement element = webDriver.findElement(by); 
      return element != null && element.isDisplayed(); 
    } 
  }); 
}

method4.java

// this is the most effective method I could find for
// locating elements reliably
public static void clickByLocator( final By locator ) {
  // uses default implicit timeout defined in test framework
  WebDriverWait wait = (WebDriverWait)new WebDriverWait( driver, 185).ignoring( StaleElementReferenceException.class ); 
  wait.until( new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() { 
    @Override 
    public Boolean apply(WebDriver webDriver) { 
      WebElement element = driver.findElement( locator );
      element.click();
      return element != null && element.isDisplayed(); 
    } 
  } );
  staticlogger.info("Finished safe click.");
}

standardmethod.java

// this is the official Selenium documention method of waiting for elements
// this method is ineffective because it still suffers from
// the stale element exception.
WebElement myDynamicElement = ( new WebDriverWait(driver, 10))
  .until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.id("myDynamicElement")));

Wow.. it works awesome ..used method 5