Explicit waits in Selenium C# doesn't work . What is wrong?

Question

So I have this issue with explicit waits. I don't want to use Thread.Sleep(). This is an simple test which it opens a page and then goes back and forward. It takes about 2-3 seconds to load this page and I want to do this in a dynamic way (testing). Hope I am not too confusig. I did a lot of research but nothing works, maybe I am doing something wrong. ( I'm using Resharper to run unit tests)

Here I have also the solution:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1k5vjc5czvmdd3u/ConsoleApplication2.rar?dl=0

I am using an extension to FindElement method so I believe it would be easy to just call this method and wait by itself. I have some explanation commented in the solution. I would appreciate if somebody give me some help. (Sorry for not so perfect english).

using System;
using System.Threading;
using ConsoleApplication2.Extensions;
using NUnit.Framework;
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    class UnitTest1
    {
        private IWebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
        [SetUp]
        public void Initialize()
        { 
            driver.Url = "some url";
            Thread.Sleep(3500);
           // driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(TimeSpan(20));

        }

       [Test]
        public void CheckBackForward()
        {
            //Go to first page in Online Help
            driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//span/ul/li/span/a")).Click();
            // So if I am commenting this Thread.Sleep
            // it will throw an exception at the extension method at line 13 at "@by"
            // I've also checked this without extension method but still the same problem. It doesn'w wait at all, it will throw this 
            // exception as soon as FindElement method is called.
            // I know that I shouldn't mix explicit waits with implicit ones.
            //Thread.Sleep(1500);
            //Store title
            var title_text = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[@id='shellAreaContent']/div/div[2]/ol/li[3]/span"),60).Text;
            //Check if Back is enabled
            Assert.IsTrue(driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[3]/a/span")).Enabled);
            //Go back
            driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[3]/a/span")).Click();
            //Check if Forward is enabled
            Assert.IsTrue(driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[4]/a/span")).Enabled);
            //Go forward
            driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[4]/a/span")).Click();
            //Store title
            var title_text2 = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[@id='shellAreaContent']/div/div[2]/ol/li[3]/span")).Text;
            //Check if you are on the same page
            Assert.AreEqual(title_text2,title_text);
        }



        [TearDown]
        public void EndTest()
        {
            driver.Quit();
        }

    }
}

And here is the extension:

using System;
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;

namespace ConsoleApplication2.Extensions
{
    public static class Extension
    {
        public static IWebElement FindElement(this IWebDriver driver, By by, int timeoutInSeconds)
        {
            if (timeoutInSeconds <= 0) return driver.FindElement(@by);
            var wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeoutInSeconds));
            return wait.Until(drv => drv.FindElement(@by));
        }



    }
}

Answer 1

I am coding with Selenium for 6+ months and I had the same problem as yours. I have created this extension method and it works for me every time.

What the code does is: During 20 seconds, it checks each 500ms, whether or not the element is present on the page. If after 20 seconds, it's not found, it will throw an exception. This will help you make a dynamic wait.

  public static class SeleniumExtensionMethods {
      public static WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20));
      public static void SafeClick(this IWebElement webElement) {
          try {
              wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementToBeClickable(webElement)).Click();
          } catch (TargetInvocationException ex) {
              Console.WriteLine(ex.InnerException);
          }

      }

and then replace this code of yours:

driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//span/ul/li/span/a")).Click();

with:

IWebElement x = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//span/ul/li/span/a"));
x.SafeClick();