Stale element error while getting text of element - selenium

Question

I want to get the text of li (second) element as below. Code is able to find the element but it is throwing the error while fetching the gettext. Please help.
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[contains(#id,'location_group')]/div/ul/li[2]"));
element.getText();
Error
Stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document
HTML
<div id=location_group>
<div>
<ul class="og-tooltip js-og-tooltip" style="display: none; opacity: 100;">
<li class="title_text">Organization Group</li>
<li class="value_text" style="background: rgb(204, 136, 136); border: 2px solid red;">Global / Aricent / gemsecure </li>
<li> </li>
<li class="title_text">Group ID</li>
<li class="value_text">gemsecure</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

May be you have to wait for the parent element to be visible then interact with it
WebElement elementUL = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[contains(#id,'location_group')]/div/ul"));
WebDriverWait wait=new WebDriverWait(driver, 60);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(elementUL));
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[contains(#id,'location_group')]/div/ul/li[2]"));
element.getText();

Answer 2

Because this element is wrapped with a ul that has display: none selenium can not interact with it.
Options to try:
element.getAttribute("innerHTML");
or you can use the JavascriptExecutor:
JavascriptExecutor executor = (JavascriptExecutor)driver;
String text= executor.executeScript("document.document.getElementsByClassName('value_text')[0].innerHTML");
Another option is to use querySelector/querySelectorAll which has broader support than getElementsByClassName

Answer 3

Place a explicit waitWebDriverWait and wait till element to be visible
WebElement ele = driver.findElement(By.xpath("Your locator "));
WebDriverWait wait=new WebDriverWait(driver, 25);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(ele));
and then getText()

Answer 4

What I recommend is one use the xPath. I think I've tried every solution in java's selenium library, thus my website had tricky selects - once user picks an option, the options are reloaded (ex. selected value sometimes disappears, sometimes different options where loaded depends on particular select).
Lot of stale element exceptions.
What I've used:
private WebElement getDesiredOptionByVisibleText(WebDriver driver, String selectId, String text) {
List<WebElement> options = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//select[#id='" + selectId
+ "']/option[contains(text(),'" + text + "')]"));
if (options == null || options.size() == 0) {
return null;
} else {
return options.get(0);
}
}
especially use this method with waits, for example my wait:
private void waitUntilDesiredOptionVisible(WebDriver driver, String selectId) {
getFluentWait(driver).until(d -> (getDesiredOptionByVisibleText(driver, selectId, value) != null));
}
public static FluentWait<WebDriver> getFluentWait(WebDriver driver) {
return new FluentWait<>(driver)
.withTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(60))
.pollingEvery(Duration.ofMillis(100));
}
Last but not least clicking that option.
private void selectByVisibleTextRegex(WebDriver driver, String selectId) {
WebElement option = getDesiredOptionByVisibleText(driver, selectId, value);
if (option == null) {
throw new NoSuchElementException(String.format("Cannot locate element with text like: %s.", value));
}
option.click();
}