Unable to find the locator with Link Text test case getting failed - selenium

Question

I am not able find the locator with anchor tag. Using xpath doesn't give the result.
Here is the HTML code :
<a id="sme1" class="item" href="/website-url" onclick="swapClasses('sme1')"
target="main" style="background-color:
transparent;">Mailboxes</a>
Selenium code :
private static final String baseURL = "http://10.112.75.248/";
private static final String adminURL = baseURL + "manager/";
private static String username = "admin";
private static String password = "default";
WebDriver driver ;
SearchElement searchEl;
#BeforeTest
public void setBaseURL(){
driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.get(adminURL);
searchEl = new SearchElement();
}
#Test(priority=0)
public void verifyLoginSuccessFull() {
searchEl.getElementsByXpath(driver, "//input[#name='username']").sendKeys(username);
searchEl.getElementsByXpath(driver, "//input[#name='password']").sendKeys(password);
searchEl.getElementsByXpath(driver, "//input[#name='submit']").submit();
String expected = "Selenium Home Page";
Assert.assertEquals(driver.getTitle(), expected);
}
#Test(priority=1)
public void addMailbox(){
//WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 1000);
//wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath("//a[text()='Mailboxes']")));
//driver.findElement(By.id("smel")).click();
searchEl.getElementsByLinkText(driver, "//a[text()='Mailboxes']").click(); //This line of code not fetching the locator.
}
SearchElement class used as a controller :
public class SearchElement {
public WebElement getElementsByXpath(WebDriver driver,String locator){
WebElement el = driver.findElement(By.xpath(locator));
return el;
}
public WebElement getElementsByLinkText(WebDriver driver,String locator){
WebElement el = driver.findElement(By.linkText(locator));
return el;
}
}
Actual Error :
Unable to locate element: {"method":"link
text","selector":"//a[text()='Mailboxes']"}
Note : The URL is different when the user logs in and when the user is presented the login page. I dont know it might be a problem.
Please help in advance.

Answer 1

By.linkText() method expects link text as parameter, but in that code you're passing XPath string. Try to pass the link text instead :
searchEl.getElementsByLinkText(driver, "Mailboxes").click();

Answer 2

try this.
//a[.='Mailboxes']
This is a text base search and "." inside the xpath navigates you to the parent