Check if a WebElement is stale without handling an exception - selenium

Question

I'm currently checking to see if a WebElement is stale by doing the following:
public static boolean isStale(WebElement element) {
try {
element.click();
return false;
} catch (StaleElementReferenceException sere) {
return true;
}
}
This is the same as the solution offered to this question:
Check for a stale element using selenium 2?
However, this seems rather messy to me. Is there a cleaner way that I can check if an element is stale, without having to throw and catch an exception?
(Also, as a side, if I have to stick with throwing and catching an exception, is there something better to do than clicking/sending keys/hovering to throw said exception? I might have a WebElement that I don't want to do any of these actions on, as it may inadvertently affect something else.)

Answer 1

Webdriver itself uses the try/catch-construction to check for staleness as well.
from org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions.java:
public static ExpectedCondition<Boolean> stalenessOf(final WebElement element) {
return new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() {
#Override
public Boolean apply(WebDriver ignored) {
try {
// Calling any method forces a staleness check
element.isEnabled();
return false;
} catch (StaleElementReferenceException expected) {
return true;
}
}
#Override
public String toString() {
return String.format("element (%s) to become stale", element);
}
};
}
The isEnabled() check is better than using a click action - clicking an element might cause unwanted side effects, and you just want to check the element's state.

Answer 2

I know this already has an accepted answer and I don't know the bigger context of how you use the staleness check but maybe this will help you or others. You can have ExpectedConditions.stalenessOf(WebElement) do the work for you. For example,
WebElement pageElement = driver.findElement(By.id("someId"));
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(webDriver, 10);
// do something that changes state of pageElement
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.stalenessOf(pageElement));
In this case, you don't have to do pageElement.click(), etc. to trigger the check.
From the docs, .stalenessOf() waits until an element is no longer attached to the DOM.
References: ExpectedConditions

Answer 3

Classic statement for C# to check staleness of web element
protected bool IsStale
{
get { return ExpectedConditions.StalenessOf(webElement)(WebDriver); }
}

Answer 4

I don't fully understand what you want to do. What do you mean by 'messy' solution?
Maybe you can use an explicite wait an as expected condition stalenessOf in combination with not.
But every solution with that don't seems stable to me.
What I do is, that I have an clicking routine in a helperclass, the idea is like:
public void ClickHelper(WebDriver driver, By by){
int counter = 1;
int max = 5;
while (counter <= max) {
try {
WebElement clickableWebElement = driver.findElement(by);
clickableWebElement.click();
return;
} catch (StaleElementReferenceException e) {
System.out.print("\nTry " + counter + " with StaleElementReferenceException:\n" + e.getMessage() + "\n");
}
versuche++;
}
throw new RuntimeException("We tried " + max + " times, but there is still an Exception. Check Log!");
}
Be careful, I just entered this by simplyfying my own methode (there are some more checks and personally I use xpath and not by etc). There might be some typo-mistakes, but i guess you will understand the basic idea. Since I use this Helpermethode, I don't have to care about Staleness of webelements. You can alter the max-value, but personally I think, if the website is such unstable, that the Element is stale so much, I would talk to the developer, because this would not be a good website.

Answer 5

This should work without dependency of display/ enabled:
def is_element_on_page(element):
try:
element.get_attribute('')
return True
except StaleElementReferenceException:
return False