Can't narrow down correct element in Python/Selenium

Question

So I'm trying to craft a website manipulation script to help automate teh creation of email mailboxes on our hosted provider.

I'm both new to Python and new to scripting web resources so if something looks weird or mediocre that's why :)

Here's my script:

import time
from selenium.webdriver import Firefox
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support.select import Select as driverselect

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
main_url = 'https://website.com:446'
opts = Options()
# noinspection PyDeprecation
# opts.set_headless()
#assert opts.headless  # Operating in headless mode
browser = Firefox(options=opts)
browser.get(main_url)

search_form = browser.find_element_by_id('LoginName')
search_form.send_keys('username')
search_form = browser.find_element_by_id('Password')
search_form.send_keys('password')
search_form.submit()
time.sleep(5)
# provision = driverselect(driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[2]/div[2]/nav/div/ul/li[4]"))
provision = driver.find_element_by_xpath('/html/body/div[2]/div[2]/nav/div/ul/li[4]/a/span[1]')
provision.submit()
# exchange = driver.find_element_by_name('Exchange')
# exchange.submit()

My error is:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/turd/PycharmProjects/Automate_NSGEmail/selenium_test.py", line 23, in provision = driver.find_element_by_xpath('/html/body/div[2]/div[2]/nav/div/ul/li[4]/a/span1')

File "/home/turd/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 394, in find_element_by_xpath return self.find_element(by=By.XPATH, value=xpath) File "/home/turd/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 976, in find_element return self.execute(Command.FIND_ELEMENT, { File "/home/turd/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 321, in execute self.error_handler.check_response(response) File "/home/turd/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 242, in check_response raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace) selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: Unable to locate element: /html/body/div[2]/div[2]/nav/div/ul/li[4]/a/span1

Now that Xpath value I copied straight from the dev tools on that page, here's what this block of code looks like from the site:

I'm trying to grab and 'click' on the one Active Dynamic-Menu item in the pic above. I think that menu is JS but I'm not 100% positive.

Anyway I'd be much obliged if anyone could help me narrow this down and grab that blasted element.

Skeer Skeer · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-09T19:32:59

So I discovered the answer myself.. I had some wrong code at the beginning of my script:

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
main_url = 'https://website.com:446'
opts = Options()
# noinspection PyDeprecation
# opts.set_headless()
#assert opts.headless  # Operating in headless mode
browser = Firefox(options=opts)
browser.get(main_url)

I changed this section to:

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
url = 'https://website.com:446'
opts = Options()
driver.maximize_window()
driver.get(url)

I was opening two instances of Firebox before, the driver.* lines would attempting to locate the xpath tags on the FF instance that was not logged in.

Derp.

Can't narrow down correct element in Python/Selenium

1 Answers