Wait Until Website Internal Search Has Completed Using VBA - vba

Question

I am really struggling to get my VBA code to wait until a website I am accessing, finishes an internal search it is performing.
So far I have tried:
Do While ie.Busy: DoEvents: Loop
Set doc = ie.document
Do While doc.readyState <> "complete": DoEvents: Loop
but it does not work. I could post the html 'refresh' function if that would help?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT
It is using the following function which I have gathered from the source code:
var limit="5";
function beginrefresh()
{
if (!document.images) return;
if (limit==1)
document.getElementsByTagName("Form")[0].submit();
else
{
limit-=1;
window.status="Page will refresh in " + limit + " seconds.";
setTimeout("beginrefresh()",1000);
}
}
window.onload = function () { beginrefresh(); }
EDIT
I have cracked it and it was really simple in the end. I used the following to search for a known id on the page that was being loaded. So when it found this id it knew that the code could continue. A very useful technique IF you know an the name of an id on the page loading.
Do
Do While ie.Busy: DoEvents: Loop
Set doc = ie.document
Do While doc.readyState <> "complete": DoEvents: Loop
Set testobject = ie.document.getElementById("changeFilterCriteria")
If Not testobject Is Nothing Then Exit Do
Loop
EDIT
Or maybe not - it does work for about 5 or 6 times in a row but then crashes on
Set testobject = ie.document.getElementById("changeFilterCriteria")
IE comes up with 'internet explorer cannot display the webpage',
If I then click back and then refresh the page is still performing its internal search.
Any help would be gratefully received!
Jim

Answer 1

This is a tricky situation that I have come across numerous times as well. The traditional "Do...Until" loop with IE.ReadyState doesn't work after the first time the page is accessed, mostly because IE and Excel are out of synch at that point. The best approach I've found is to use a Boolean flag in a "Do...If" loop, where the flag is triggered by a reference to an element in the page you're refreshing. Until the page refreshes, the flag will be in one state. As long as the flag is in that state, the Do loop continues. So, somewhere after you've instructed the page to refresh, insert the following code (be sure to adapt for your specific circumstance):
Dim flag as Boolean: flag = False
Dim lng_cnt as long: long_cnt = 0
Dim elem_temp as IHTMLElement: Set elem_temp = IE.document.getElementById("*element_name*")
Do Unitl flag = True or lng_cnt = 30
If elem_temp Is Nothing Then
flag = False
Else
flag = True
Exit Do
End If
lng_cnt = lng_cnt +1
Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:01"))
Loop
Note: I added the counter (lng_cnt) to prevent infinite looping. It instructs the program to wait 1 second before continuing if the page hasn't loaded yet, and will discontinue after 30 seconds; because you never know if the page's server is down or whatever. Hope this helps.