Error when calling findElement after findElements on webdriver.WebElement (using Protractor, JS)

Question

I'm using Protractor (Angular JS's webdriver wrapper), and although I can chain findElement indefinitely off of a single WebElement instance, I get an error when I attempt to chain findElement after using findElements (plural).

Error (stack trace given at bottom):

TypeError: Object [object Object] has no method 'findElement'

Chaining findElement:

var elementPromise = browser.findElement(by.css('body')).findElement(by.css('ul')).findElement(by.css('li'));
elementPromise.findElement(by.css('.icon-meter')); // does not raise error

Using findElement after findElements:

var arrayPromise = browser.findElement(by.css('ul')).findElements(by.css('li'));
elementPromise = arrayPromise.then(function(elems) {
    return elems[0];
});
elementPromise.findElement(by.css('.icon-meter')); // => raises error

Error message with trace

TypeError: Object [object Object] has no method 'findElement'
at repl:1:16
at /home/markham/src/dataraptor-rails4/spec/node_modules/elementexplorer-convenience.js:83:19
at webdriver.promise.ControlFlow.runInNewFrame_ (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/protractor/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/webdriver/promise.js:1598:20)
at webdriver.promise.ControlFlow.runEventLoop_ (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/protractor/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/webdriver/promise.js:1463:8)
at wrapper [as _onTimeout] (timers.js:252:14)
at Timer.listOnTimeout [as ontimeout] (timers.js:110:15)

Answer 1

I got the same problem with the version 0.24 of protractor.

As a workaround, i have replaced all the invocation of findElement() by element() and all findElements() by all().

Chaining element:

var elementPromise = browser.element(by.css('body')).element(by.css('ul')).element(by.css('li'));
elementPromise.element(by.css('.icon-meter')); 

Using findElement after findElements:

var arrayPromise = browser.element(by.css('ul')).all(by.css('li'));
elementPromise = arrayPromise.then(function(elems) {
    return elems[0];
});
elementPromise.element(by.css('.icon-meter'));

There is more details on this release in this g+ post