How to wait until an element no longer exists in Selenium

Question

I am testing a UI in which the user clicks a delete button and a table entry disappears. As such, I want to be able to check that the table entry no longer exists.

I have tried using ExpectedConditions.not() to invert ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(), hoping that it would mean "expect that there is not a presence of the specified element". My code is like so:

browser.navigate().to("http://stackoverflow.com"); new WebDriverWait(browser, 1).until(         ExpectedConditions.not(                 ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.id("foo")))); 

However, I found that even doing this, I get a TimeoutExpcetion caused by a NoSuchElementException saying that the element "foo" does not exist. Of course, having no such element is what I want, but I don't want an exception to be thrown.

So how can I wait until an element no longer exists? I would prefer an example that does not rely on catching an exception if at all possible (as I understand it, exceptions should be thrown for exceptional behavior).

Answer 1

You can also use -

new WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(ExpectedConditions.invisibilityOfElementLocated(locator)); 

If you go through the source of it you can see that both NoSuchElementException and staleElementReferenceException are handled.

/**    * An expectation for checking that an element is either invisible or not    * present on the DOM.    *    * @param locator used to find the element    */   public static ExpectedCondition<Boolean> invisibilityOfElementLocated(       final By locator) {     return new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() {       @Override       public Boolean apply(WebDriver driver) {         try {           return !(findElement(locator, driver).isDisplayed());         } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {           // Returns true because the element is not present in DOM. The           // try block checks if the element is present but is invisible.           return true;         } catch (StaleElementReferenceException e) {           // Returns true because stale element reference implies that element           // is no longer visible.           return true;         }       } 

Answer 2

The solution would still rely on exception-handling. And this is pretty much ok, even standard Expected Conditions rely on exceptions being thrown by findElement().

The idea is to create a custom Expected Condition:

  public static ExpectedCondition<Boolean> absenceOfElementLocated(       final By locator) {     return new ExpectedCondition<Boolean>() {       @Override       public Boolean apply(WebDriver driver) {         try {           driver.findElement(locator);           return false;         } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {           return true;         } catch (StaleElementReferenceException e) {           return true;         }       }        @Override       public String toString() {         return "element to not being present: " + locator;       }     };   }