Nightmare.js error: Search failed: Nothing responds to “goto”

Question

I am running into an error, when including vanilla JS in nightmare.js. I want to make sure that every email in my array is inputted into the system. A for loop would be ideal, but I have continually run into error such as:

Search failed: Nothing responds to "goto"

Here is my code:

var jquery = require('jquery');
var Nightmare = require('nightmare');
var nightmare = Nightmare({
    show: true,
    dock: true
});

var siteName = "*********";
var username = "*********";
var password = "*********";

var outboundEmailArray = [
  {
    "from_name": "TestOutbound",
    "email_username": "array1",
    "email_domain": "salesforce.com",
    "email_domain": "salesforce.com",
    "reply_to": "testOutbound@salesforce.com"
  },
  {
    "from_name": "Tester",
    "email_username": "array2.0",
    "email_domain": "salesforce.com",
    "email_domain": "salesforce.com",
    "reply_to": "testOutbound@salesforce.com"
  }
];
//
// var outboundEmailSetup = function(outboundEmail){
//     nightmare
//     .goto("https://" + siteName + ".desk.com/login/new")
//     .type("input[id='user_session_email']", username)
//     .type("input[id='user_session_password']", password)
//     .click("#user_session_submit").wait(2000)
//     .goto("https://" + siteName + ".desk.com/admin/settings/mail-servers")
//     .click("#a-add-modal").wait(2000)
//     .type("input[id='postmark_outbound_mailbox_fromname']", outboundEmail.from_name).wait(2000)
//     .type("input[id='email_username']", outboundEmail.email_username).wait(2000)
//     .click("#from_select_4999").wait(2000)
//     .type("input[id='postmark_outbound_mailbox_reply_to']", outboundEmail.reply_to).wait(2000)
//     .click("#postmark_commit").wait(2000)
//     .click(".a-modal-bottom .a-button").wait(2000)
//     .evaluate(function() {})
//     .end()
//     .then(function(result) {
//         console.log(result)
//     })
//     .catch(function(error) {
//         console.error('Search failed:', error);
//     });
//   }

var outboundEmailSetup = function(i){
  if(i < outboundEmailArray.length) {
    nightmare
    .goto("https://" + siteName + ".desk.com/login/new")
    .type("input[id='user_session_email']", username)
    .type("input[id='user_session_password']", password)
    .click("#user_session_submit").wait(2000)
    .goto("https://" + siteName + ".desk.com/admin/settings/mail-servers")
    .click("#a-add-modal").wait(2000)
    .type("input[id='postmark_outbound_mailbox_fromname']", outboundEmailArray[i].from_name).wait(2000)
    .type("input[id='email_username']", outboundEmailArray[i].email_username).wait(2000)
    .click("#from_select_4999").wait(2000)
    .type("input[id='postmark_outbound_mailbox_reply_to']", outboundEmailArray[i].reply_to).wait(2000)
    .click("#postmark_commit").wait(2000)
    .click(".a-modal-bottom .a-button").wait(2000)
    .evaluate(function() {})
    .end()
    .then(function(result) {
        console.log(result)
    })
    .catch(function(error) {
        console.error('Search failed:', error);
    });
    outboundEmailSetup(i+1);
  }
}

outboundEmailSetup(0);

Ideally, it would loop through the outboundEmailArray, run the function to input the emails into the system, repeat until it has reached the end of the array.

Answer 1

The key is to avoid multiple calls to the then method concurrently

You will find a very detailed explanation about that concept here.

Basically what you have to do is make sure each consecutive call take place within the previous call then method

This is really straightforward when we know beforehand how many steps we are dealing with. For example, if we want to make two consecutive calls, the code would be like this:

nightmare.goto('http://example.com')
  .title()
  .then(function(title) {
    console.log(title);
    nightmare.goto('http://google.com')
      .title()
      .then(function(title) {
        console.log(title);
      });
  });

Notice how the goto to google.com is inside the then callback.

Since you're dealing with a loop, your code would be a little more sophisticated.

var urls = ['http://example1.com', 'http://example2.com', 'http://example3.com'];
urls.reduce(function(accumulator, url) {
  return accumulator.then(function(results) {
    return nightmare.goto(url)
      .wait('body')
      .title()
      .then(function(result){
        results.push(result);
        return results;
      });
  });
}, Promise.resolve([])).then(function(results){
    console.dir(results);
});

I think the source link explains this code better than I can :-)

The above executes each Nightmare queue in series, adding the results to an array. The resulting accumulated array is resolved to the final .then() call where the results are printed.