driver.navigate().back() blocks when back button triggers a javascript alert on the page

[lukeis]

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 2181

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Using IE7, go to a website that triggers a javascript alert when the user hits the
back button
2. driver.navigate().back()


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

Alert is triggered and the method driver.navigate().back() never returns.  

The method should return so I can handle the alert accordingly from within the test.


Selenium version: 2.2.0
OS: Win XP  (selenium 2 grid server is on a Mac tho)
Browser: IE 
Brower version: 7

Reported by mmicallef on 2011-08-03 09:43:52

[lukeis]

fyi, I've worked around this by invoking:

driver.executeScript("javascript: setTimeout(\"history.go(-1)\", 2000)");

instead of calling navigate().back()

It would be nice to not have to work around it and use the standard api tho.

Reported by mmicallef on 2011-08-03 09:53:55

[lukeis]

Can you attach the full HTML and Javascript, as well as a Java test case which shows
the problem?

Reported by dawagner on 2011-08-03 10:36:50

• Status changed: NeedsClarification

[lukeis]

Sure thing.  Attached an html file.

The java snippet would be:

driver.get(<file location>);
driver.navigate.back(); <--- This never returns because the html throws up an alert

Reported by mmicallef on 2011-08-04 15:54:28

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- _Attachment: [scratchpad.php](https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-attachments/selenium/issue-2181/comment-3/scratchpad.php)_

[lukeis]

This is completely expected. IE navigates back in the history by using the COM GoBack()
method of the IWebBrowser2 interface. Given that, if there are any modal dialogs that
appear during the execution of the method, the method will block. Note that we will
encounter similar problems with going forward in the history, and (in a few cases)
submitting forms. Other than executing the GoBack method on a separate thread, which
involves calling a few not-very-intuitive COM object marshaling functions (CoGetInterfaceAndReleaseStream()
and CoMarshalInterThreadInterfaceInStream()) there's not much we can do about this.

Reported by james.h.evans.jr on 2011-08-04 18:31:11

[lukeis]

Thanks James,

  As I said in my comment above, there is a simple workaround by executing setTimeout(\"history.go(-1)\",
2000)").  The call returns control to SeleniumDriver before the browser actually executes
the command thereby giving you control.

Reported by mmicallef on 2011-08-04 18:34:54

[lukeis]

Bulk closing issues with request for clarification and no response in 2 months. If you
believe this was done in error, please open a new issue with the requested clarification.

Reported by jari.bakken on 2011-10-11 20:08:18

• Status changed: Invalid

[lukeis]

Reported by luke.semerau on 2015-09-17 18:13:23

• Labels added: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit