I am receiving java.lang.NullPointerException at stepDefinition - selenium

Question

I am using POM pattern in cucumber and in StepDefinition package I created one 'Hooks.java' to launch the browser and 'CustomersModuleSteps.java' to add new customer when I am executing the runner file I am receiving the below error. someone please look into it and advise.
Error:```
************ open URL ************
************ Enter Username & password ************
************ clicking on login button ************
************ Validating page Title ************
************ clicking on CustomersMenu **********
Given user clicks on customers menu # com.nopCommerse.StepDefinition.CustomersModuleSteps.user_clicks_on_customers_menu() in file:/Users/rajasekhar/eclipse-workspace/nopCommerse/target/test-classes/
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.openqa.selenium.support.pagefactory.DefaultElementLocator.findElement(DefaultElementLocator.java:69)
at org.openqa.selenium.support.pagefactory.internal.LocatingElementHandler.invoke(LocatingElementHandler.java:38)
at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy19.click(Unknown Source)
at com.nopCommerse.Base.ElementExtension.ClickOnIt(ElementExtension.java:55)
at com.nopCommerse.pageObjects.CustomersModuleObjects.clickCustomersMenu(CustomersModuleObjects.java:31)
at com.nopCommerse.StepDefinition.CustomersModuleSteps.user_clicks_on_customers_menu(CustomersModuleSteps.java:32)
at ✽.user clicks on customers menu(com.Features/CustomersModule.feature:4)
When user clicks on customers menu item # com.nopCommerse.StepDefinition.CustomersModuleSteps.user_clicks_on_customers_menu_item() in file:/Users/rajasekhar/eclipse-workspace/nopCommerse/target/test-classes/
************ clicking on logout link ************
************ closing the Browser ************
Failed scenarios:
com.Features/CustomersModule.feature:3 # Add a new customer
1 Scenarios (1 failed)
2 Steps (1 failed, 1 skipped)
0m24.213s
My Base class
public class TestBase extends ElementExtension {
public WebDriver driver;
public Logger logger;
public Properties configProp;
public CustomersModuleObjects custmod;
public LoginPageObjects lp ;
}
My CustomersModuleSteps.java
package com.nopCommerse.StepDefinition;
import org.apache.log4j.Level;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
import org.apache.log4j.PropertyConfigurator;
import com.nopCommerse.Base.TestBase;
import com.nopCommerse.pageObjects.CustomersModuleObjects;
import io.cucumber.java.Before;
import io.cucumber.java.en.*;
public class CustomersModuleSteps extends TestBase {
#Before
public void setup() {
//object creation for logger
logger = Logger.getLogger("EmployeeRestApi"); //added logger
PropertyConfigurator.configure("Log4j.properties"); //added logger
logger.setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
}
#Given("user clicks on customers menu")
public void user_clicks_on_customers_menu() {
logger.info("************ clicking on CustomersMenu **********");
custmod = new CustomersModuleObjects(driver);
custmod.clickCustomersMenu();
}
#When("user clicks on customers menu item")
public void user_clicks_on_customers_menu_item() {
logger.info("************ clicking on customer Menu item **********");
custmod.clickCustomerMenuItem();
}
}
And this is my page factory class
package com.nopCommerse.pageObjects;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.FindBy;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.How;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.PageFactory;
import com.nopCommerse.Base.TestBase;
public class CustomersModuleObjects extends TestBase {
WebDriver driver;
//constructor of CustomersModule class
public CustomersModuleObjects(WebDriver ldriver) {
driver = ldriver;
PageFactory.initElements(ldriver,this);
}
//Identify webElements
#FindBy(how = How.XPATH,using = "//a[#href='#']//span[contains(text(),'Customers')]")
WebElement CustomersMenu;
#FindBy(how = How.XPATH,using ="//a[#href='/Admin/Customer/List']//span[contains(text(),'Customers')]")
WebElement customerMenuItem;
//action methods for elements identified
public void clickCustomersMenu() {
ClickOnIt(CustomersMenu);
}
public void clickCustomerMenuItem() {
ClickOnIt(customerMenuItem);
}
}

Answer 1

This could be for two reasons in my experience:
You are not initializing the WebDriver correctly, so that you could debug and check that driver is not null at this point CustomersModuleSteps.java:32
The XPath for the element is not the correct one, so that you could install an extension for google chrome (I use xpath helper) and check that you are locating correctly the element in the Page.
In addition to you could improve the structure, extending a little bit the POM Patterns and get the code cleaner splitting the Page Actions and Page Objects as you can see in the following example:
Web Page Element definition
public class LoginPageElements {
protected WebDriver driver;
public LoginPageElements(WebDriver driver) {
this.driver = driver;
PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);
}
//Mapping web elements
#FindBy(id = "userName")
protected WebElement TxtUserName;
#FindBy(id = "Password")
protected WebElement TxtPassword;
#FindBy(id = "Login")
protected WebElement BtnLogin;
}
Web Page Actions definition
public class LoginActions extends LoginPageElements {
WebDriverWait wait;
public LoginActions (WebDriver driver, WebDriverWait wait) {
super(driver);
this.wait = wait;
}
public void Login() {
fillUserName();
fillPassword();
ClickLogin();
}
private void fillUserName() {
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(TxtUserName));
TxtUserName.sendKeys("User");
}
private void fillPassword() {
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(TxtPassword));
TxtPassword.sendKeys("Pass");
}
private void ClickLogin() {
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(BtnLogin));
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(BtnLogin));
BtnLogin.submit();
}
Test Class
public class LoginExample {
WebDriver driver;
WebDriverWait wait;
LoginActions loginActions;
#BeforeClass
public void setDriver() {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", ClassLoader.getSystemResource("chromedriver.exe").getPath());
driver = new ChromeDriver();
wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
loginActions = new LoginActions(driver, wait);
driver.manage().window().maximize();
}
#Test()
public void testLogin() {
driver.get("http://www.YourLoginPage.com/");
loginActions.Login();
}
#AfterClass
public void close() {
driver.quit();
}
}
Hope this could help you and so that you will be able to find where the problem is easier