WebElement.isDisplayed() throws NoSuchElementException when element is not found

[lukeis]

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 1880

What steps will reproduce the problem?

WebElement myElement;
myElement.isDisplayed();


What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

This code returns true if the element is found. However if the element is not found
this code DOES NOT return false. Instead NoSuchElementException is thrown.


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

Selenium 2.0 rc2, Java.

Please provide any additional information below.

Work-around it to wrap this in a try catch. However isDisplayed() should follow it's
contract and return a boolean always. Users will need a try-catch whenever they care
about isDisplayed returning false.

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-20 19:32:45

[lukeis]

If the element is cached, StaleElementReferenceException is thrown instead.

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-20 19:36:43

[lukeis]

Which browser are you seeing this with?

Reported by jmleyba on 2011-06-20 20:39:02

• Status changed: NeedsClarification
• Labels added: Lang-Java, Component-WebDriver

[lukeis]

Firefox 3.6.17

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-20 20:52:12

[lukeis]

Can you post your full code to reproduce this, and point out which line the exception
is being thrown on?

I'm guessing driver.findElement(...) is throwing the NoSuchElementException rather
than element.isDisplayed(), which is expected behaviour.

Reported by dawagner on 2011-06-22 11:17:42

[lukeis]

The code I gave is complete. I am using Page Factory Pattern from Selenium 2 so there
is no driver.findElement(...) in my code, the page factory automatically finds the
element. The code I posted will work if the id of the element is "myElement". Here
is another example that requires css to find the element:

@FindBy(css="div[class*=list_link]")
WebElement list;

public boolean isListDisplayed(){
    return list.isDisplayed();
}

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-22 17:56:19

[lukeis]

Exception is thrown on this line:

return list.isDisplayed();

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-22 17:57:38

[lukeis]

To be clear, the page factory ultimately calls driver.findElement and that is the source
of the Exception, but that specific call is not done in my code. Thanks.

Reported by writewale on 2011-06-22 21:59:16

[lukeis]

This is intended behaviour; @FindBy is simply a convenient way of doing the element
lookup - if the element is not present, the correct behaviour is to throw, as if you'd
called findElement yourself and it had failed.

Reported by dawagner on 2011-06-24 17:42:16

• Status changed: WorkingAsIntended