selenium webdriver is clearing out fields after sendKeys had previously populated them

Question

The webpage that I'm testing is using knockout. On other pages on our site that are not currently using knockout I'm not having the same problem. The scenario I have is where the page opens, I enter in various required fields and click the save button. At some point between when it enters a value in the last text field and when it clicks the save button the fields that previously had values become cleared out, and thus the script can't continue. Here is an example of the code that I'm running:

driver.findElement(By.id("sku")).clear();
driver.findElement(By.id("sku")).sendKeys(itemNo);
driver.findElement(By.id("desktopThankYouPage")).clear();
driver.findElement(By.id("desktopThankYouPage")).sendKeys(downloadUrl);
driver.findElement(By.id("mobileThankYouPage")).clear();
driver.findElement(By.id("mobileThankYouPage")).sendKeys(mobileDownloadUrl);
driver.findElement(By.id("initialPrice")).clear();
driver.findElement(By.id("initialPrice")).sendKeys(initialPrice);
driver.findElement(By.id("submitSiteChanges")).click();

Like I said, between the time it enters text in the last field and the time it clicks save the fields that previously had text in them get cleared out, and thus my test fails. The problem is it doesn't always happen. Sometimes the test runs fine, other times it doesn't.

I've tried putting Thread.sleep(x); all over the place to see if pausing at certain points would fix the problem. I also have tried using javascript to wait in the background for any ajax that might be running. Also have the implicit wait of driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS). None of it seemingly has made any difference.

I'm running version 2.13 of selenium server and all my tests run on Firefox 8.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Firefox has a bug which prevents some events from being executed while the browser window is out of focus. This could be an issue when you're running your automation tests - which might be typing even if the window is out of focus.

The point is that knockout model updates are triggered (by default) with the change event. If it's not being executed, it's underlying model won't be up-to-date.

To fix this issue I triggered the change event "manually", injecting javascript into my tests.:

//suppose "element" is an input field
element.sendKeys("value");
JavascriptExecutor jsExecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
jsExecutor.executeScript("$(arguments[0]).change();", element);

As you might have noticed, I'm using jQuery to trigger the change event. If you're not using jQuery on your app, you can check here how to trigger it using vanilla javascript.

Hope that helps somebody.