Java webdriver: Element not visible exception

Question

I\'m having the following problem. I have a dropdown that is hidden so when I make the Select and run the test i get the following error:

 org.openqa.seleniu         


        

Answer 1

Since WebDriver tries to simulate real users, it cannot interact with elements which are invisible/hidden. To solve your issue, I think you would need to click on div first which will make the drop down visible and select option from the dropdown. I would recommend such an approach as opposed to pure Javascript way since it would simulate a real user. Give following a shot,

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 300);
WebElement triggerDropDown = driver.findElement(By
                .className("ui-helper-hidden"));
triggerDropDown.click();
WebElement selectElement = wait.until(ExpectedConditions
                  .visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("formLevel:levels_input")));
Select select = new Select(selectElement);
select.selectByVisibleText("SECURITY");

Edit updated the class name of triggerDropDown

Answer 2

Hi There can be so many reason for this. I also faced this issue number of times and solved using different ways.

1- Using WebdriverWait that is also know as explicit wait

2- Using unique xpath- using xpath ways.

3- Get the size of element then click or perform any action on first one.

I documented all solution here How to Solve Element not visible Exception

Answer 3

In addition to the reasons and issues raised by the earlier answers, I encountered another cause worth mentioning. In my case, a JavaScript on the page had to run after clicking a link on the page in order for the elements that I wanted to access to become visible. That's ok as long as your driver has JavaScript enabled. In my case, I was running without JavaScript, so even though the link was "clicked" programmatically, the elements were not becoming visible. I was using HtmlUnitDriver with the default settings. Ultimately I switched to ChromeDriver. (You can enable JavaScript on HtmlUnitDriver, but that - for other reasons - was not enough for me in my case.)

Answer 4

Haven't tested this, but does the following work?

s.selectByValue("7ea4b4ea-4f06-4d27-9541-1b0cf3f2aa22");

Answer 5

I absolutely agree to sircapsalot. You should hold application business logic and "do like an user". And use this hack for workarounds only.

Answer:

Try this way

document.getElementById('formLevel:levels_input').options[3].selected = "true"