java - Selenium WebDriver StaleElementReferenceException

Question

I get this error when running my tests: org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException: Element is no longer attached to the DOM

any idea on how to solve the above exception? this happen in my grid which has a ref Xpath expression which is dynamic

Answer 1

I ran across this same problem and could not find any solutions. Came up with a solution and posting it here, hope this helps someone with the same problem. I created a class to handle stale elements depending on their type, cssselector, id, etc and simply call it like I would any other page object.

public void StaleElementHandleByID (String elementID)
{
    int count = 0;
    boolean clicked = false;
    while (count < 4 && !clicked)
    {
        try 
        {
            WebElement yourSlipperyElement= driver.findElement(By.id(elementID));
            yourSlipperyElement.click(); 
            clicked = true;
        } 
        catch (StaleElementReferenceException e)
        {
            e.toString();
            System.out.println("Trying to recover from a stale element :" + e.getMessage());
            count = count+1;
        }
    }
}

I'd recommend only using this on elements you know cause problems for WebDriver.