Selenium with pyvirtualdisplay unable to locate element

python, pyvirtualdisplay, selenium, ubuntu

Solution

If there is some dynamic content on the website you need to wait some time until you can retrieve the wished element. Try to following code examples:

Check Configuration

Did you install a backend for `pyvirtualdisplay` like `xvfb` and `xephyr`? If not,

try: `sudo apt-get install xvfb xserver-xephyr`

First try: Add a simple `time.sleep()`

import time
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display
from selenium import webdriver

display = Display(visible=0, size=(1024, 768))
display.start()

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
actions = webdriver.ActionChains(browser)
browser.get('some_url_I_need')
time.sleep(5) # sleep for 5 seconds
content = browser.find_element_by_id('content') # Error on this line

Second try: Add `browser.implicitly_wait(30)` to your Selenium webdriver.

from pyvirtualdisplay import Display
from selenium import webdriver

display = Display(visible=0, size=(1024, 768))
display.start()

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.implicitly_wait(30) # seconds
actions = webdriver.ActionChains(browser)
browser.get('some_url_I_need')
content = browser.find_element_by_id('content') # Error on this line

Problem

I have a working script that logs into a site using selenium like this: script.py ``` from pyvirtualdisplay import Display from selenium import webdriver display = Display(visible=0, size=(1024, 768)) display.start() browser = webdriver.Firefox() actions = webdriver.ActionChains(browser) browser.get('some_url_I_need') content = browser.find_element_by_id('content') # Error on this line ``` running that script on an amazon ubuntu box through `ssh` where I installed firefox the following way: `sudo apt-get install firefox` The error I get is: selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: u'Unable to locate element: {"method":"id","selector":"content"}' If I run the same script on another ubuntu box through `ssh` too, it runs fine, no error, but I don't know how firefox was installed on that box, what could be the cause of that error. Is is related firefox installation and how to properly install it to be used with pyvirtualdisplay and selenium ?

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