Webdriver FindElement by CssSelector Click Not Working - selenium

Question

I have a dropdown on a web page for selecting a country which has been rendered using the jQuery Chosen plugin. An extract of the html below,
<div>
<label for="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry" id="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_lblCountry" class="short required">Country*</label>:
<div id="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn" class="chzn-container undefined chzn-container-single" style="width: 199.44444px;">
<span>Please select ...</span><div><b></b></div>
<div class="chzn-drop" style="left: -9000px; width: 197.222px; top: 28px;">
<div class="chzn-search"><input type="text" style="width: 162px;"></div>
<ul class="chzn-results">
<li id="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_0" class="active-result result-selected">Please select ...</li>
<li id="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_1" class="active-result">United Kingdom</li>
<li id="phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_2" class="active-result">Afghanistan</li>
.......
If I use the Selenium IDE to record the actions to select the “United Kingdom” from the list the following script is recorded. Run snippet to see table with the commands in it.
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>Command</td>
<td>Target</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>click</td>
<td>css=a.chzn-single > span</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>click</td>
<td>id=phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_1</td>
</tr>
</table>
I can run this script repeatably in the IDE and the UK is selected from the dropdown each time. However, if I export the C#/Nunit/Webdriver code below
driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector("a.chzn-single > span")).Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_1")).Click();
and execute it, it fails on the 1st statement with the Selenium Element Not Visible exception.
Any advice on how to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

you can try xPath and select like //span[contains(.,'Please Select')]

Answer 2

Use explicit wait to make sure the dropdown is visible before the click
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
IWebElement dropdown = wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementIsVisible(By.CssSelector("a.chzn-single > span")));
dropdown.Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("phMainContent_EmployeeAdd1_ddlCountry_chzn_o_1")).Click();