The CSS element is covering up the Xpath element

I am grappling with a challenge in my Selenium testcase as a temporary CSS element is blocking the xpath element I need to click on.

During the execution of my testcase in Visual Studio, I encounter an error message that reads:

OpenQA.Selenium.ElementClickInterceptedException Element <a href="#/app/customer/handling/devices"> is not clickable at point (105,221) because another element <div class="showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted"> obscures it

The obstructing element appears to be a CSS object. However, upon manual inspection and search for this specific CSS element 

<div class="showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted">
, no results are found in the code.

This leads me to believe that the CSS element is transient and only detectable for a short period while the page loads. This theory is supported by the fact that inserting a static wait method Task.Delay(4000).Wait(); enables the successful completion of the testcase.

Yet, I am not inclined towards using a static wait method as a solution in my code. I aim to await the disappearance of the temporary CSS to proceed with clicking on my desired xpath element.

Presented below is the relevant section of my code:

var wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30));

wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementIsVisible(By.CssSelector("div class='showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted'")));
//Waiting for temporary CSS element to appear
            wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.InvisibilityOfElementLocated(By.CssSelector("div class='showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted'")));
//Waiting for temporary CSS element to vanish

wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementToBeClickable(By.XPath("//div/div[2]/nav[2]/div/ul/li[1]/a"))).Click();
//Click on the "Handle Tools" link

In executing the above actions, I encounter an error regarding the invalidity of the CSS selector I am trying to locate.

If I skip the initial step and directly wait for the CSS to disappear or become "invisible," the check happens too swiftly, preceding the loading of the CSS element.

Hence, there might be an issue in how I am defining the By.CssSelector format or possibly, the CSS element carries a different name than indicated in the error message from Visual Studio mentioned earlier.

I seek guidance on whether my approach to identifying the CSS element here is incorrect:

wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.InvisibilityOfElementLocated(By.CssSelector("div class='showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted'")));

ALTERNATIVELY

Is there a preferable technique to dynamically waiting out transient CSS elements?

OR

Can I verify if the CSS element hindering the action is truly denoted as "div class='showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted'"?

c#cssseleniumwebdriverwait

Answer №1

I'm a bit uncertain about what you mean by a CSS element. It seems like it might be a misunderstanding that has stuck with you. CSS stands for cascading style sheets, which are used to define the appearance of a Document Object Model (DOM) element.

XPath is one way to pinpoint the location of an element so that a driver can locate and interact with it. CSS selectors provide another method for finding elements within the XML or HTML structure of a DOM. In reality, there's no such thing as a "CSS element" or an "XPath element"—they're simply referred to as "elements."

If you're looking to address the issue you've encountered, you might want to consider the following solution:

//This function is known as an extension method, which extends the capabilities of an existing class. You should place this method in a static class that your driver can access.
private static void WaitUntil(this IWebDriver driver, Func<bool> Condition, float timeout)
{
    float timer = timeout;
    while (!Condition.Invoke() && timer > 0f)
    {
        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);
        timer -= 0.5f;
    }
    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);
}

driver.WaitUntil(() => driver.FindElementsBy(By.CssSelector(".showbox.layout-align-center-center.layout-row.ng-star-inserted").length == 0);

It's worth noting that the CSS Selectors mentioned in your description are actually incorrect. I recommend familiarizing yourself with them through a tutorial like this one.

Answer №2

In this scenario, the issue lay in an invalid CSS selector that needed correction. By removing the "div class=" and replacing it with ".", the problem was resolved.

Previous Selector:

"div class='showbox layout-align-center-center layout-row ng-star-inserted'"

Updated Selector:

".showbox.layout-align-center-center.layout-row.ng-star-inserted"

A big thank you to Asyranok for providing the correct CSS format that helped address the error. I simply integrated your code snippet into my solution, skipping the unnecessary parts and achieving success. :)

I typically rely on xpath for element identification, so working with CSS selectors is still a learning curve for me.

Special thanks to JeffC for validating my hunch about waiting for the obscuring element to load initially and then disappear before proceeding further.

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