How to use find_element_by_link_text() properly to not raise NoSuchElementException?

Question

I have an HTML code like this:

<div class="links nopreview"><span><a class="csiAction"

href="/WebAccess/home.html#URL=centric://REFLECTION/INSTANCE/_CS_Data/null">Home</a></span>&nbsp;•&nbsp;<span><span><a class="csiAction"

href="/WebAccess/home.html#URL=centric://SITEADMIN/_CS_Site">Setup</a></span>&nbsp;•&nbsp;</span><span><a

title="Sign Out" class="csiAction csiActionLink">Sign Out</a></span></div>

I would like to click on the link that has the text Home. As this Home link appears after login, I have a code like this:

from selenium import webdriver

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

import re

browser = webdriver.Firefox() # Get local session of firefox

browser.get("http://myServer/WebAccess/login.html") # Load App page

elem = browser.find_element_by_name("LoginID") # Find the Login box

elem.send_keys("Administrator")

elem = browser.find_element_by_name("Password") # Find the Password box

elem.send_keys("Administrator" + Keys.RETURN)

#try:

elem = browser.find_element_by_link_text("Home")

elem.click()

The part till login works great. However the last but one line is problematic

elem = browser.find_element_by_link_text("Home")

It raises this NoSuchElementException where the Home link is there as you can see from the HTML code.

raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)

NoSuchElementException: Message: u'Unable to locate element: {"method":"link text","selector":"Home"}' 

Any guidance as to what I am doing wrong, please?

Answer 1

You should try adding an implicit wait to this so that the test waits instead of running too quickly.

 from selenium import webdriver

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

import re

 

browser = webdriver.Firefox() # Get local session of firefox

 

browser.implicitly_wait(10) #wait 10 seconds when doing a find_element before carrying on

 

browser.get("http://myServer/WebAccess/login.html") # Load App page

elem = browser.find_element_by_name("LoginID") # Find the Login box

elem.send_keys("Administrator")

elem = browser.find_element_by_name("Password") # Find the Password box

elem.send_keys("Administrator" + Keys.RETURN)

#try:

elem = browser.find_element_by_link_text("Home")

elem.click()

The implicitly_wait call makes the browser hold on until the item is present on the page and visible so that the actions can be performed on it.