Selenium implicitlyWait Not Working?

Question

I am learning Java Maven Selenium. I want something like this in Selenium using implicitlyWait.

1. Open website (for example https://www.facebook.com)
2. Click on email field of login
3. Wait 20 seconds
4. Enter my email

Here is my simple code:

package com.org.learningMaven;

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.Keys;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class HelloWorldTest {   
    @Test
    public void login() {
        WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        driver.get("https://www.facebook.com/");
        driver.findElement(By.id("email")).click();
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
        driver.findElement(By.id("email")).sendKeys("[email protected]");
    }
    private void sendKeys(Keys enter) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

    }
}

This code is not working. It will simply open Facebook, click on email field & enter my email id instead of waiting 10 seconds before entering my email.

Wondrous

read the doc seleniumhq.org/docs/04_webdriver_advanced.jsp#implicit-waits and make conclusion when we need to use it :P – Scribble

and can you share why you need to wait specific amount of time? it doesn't make sense to me in this particular case. – Scribble

you are right, it does not make sense using wait here, i just made this a simple example to understand the process easily. :) – Wondrous

nice, welcome to SO, gooood eyes :P – Scribble

& i was trying to post on my Facebook timeline. if i post a link google.com there, then i will wait 10 seconds to load link thumbnail before clicking Post button. & i think my next question will be how to Click Post button, reaching post button using TAB key is not a good way, it is hard to know how many time i should press TAB key to Focus POST button :P and..... eyes...? Thanks – Wondrous

Before posting a question try to answer the question yourself, try to read some docs, e.g. code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/GettingStarted - you will get more benefit from it. – Scribble

Answer 1

Implicit Wait and Explicit Waits doesn't work that way, they will maximum wait for element for the time duration specified, If they find the element before that next step would be executed.

If you want your test to wait for exact time duration, you may want to use.

Thread.sleep(Time duration in milliseconds);

You may want to refer Diff b/w Implict Wait and Explicit Wait

Explicit Waits : An explicit waits is code you define to wait for a certain condition to occur before proceeding further in the code.

Implicit Waits : An implicit wait is to tell WebDriver to poll the DOM for a certain amount of time when trying to find an element or elements if they are not immediately available.

Thread.sleep : In sleep code It will always wait for mentioned seconds, even in case the page is ready to interact after 1 sec. So this can slow the tests.

Sapienza

Thanks, it worked. i heard that Thread.sleep(); is not a good thing, i dont know why it is not good, but it is working for me, thanks again. – Wondrous

But its not a good practice to use Thread.sleep you should always try to use Implicit or Explicit Waits. – Sapienza

can you tell me plz why it is not good? in my case, i only want to wait few seconds before doing any action, so what side effect can i have with sleep method ? thanks – Wondrous

i am using try { Thread.sleep(20000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } – Wondrous

Thanks a lot Drets, i got it. :) – Wondrous

I've modified the answer. – Sapienza

Answer 2

Thread.sleep halts you execution for that particular time period. That why it is not recommended to use Thread.sleep in your execution script. Where as Implicit/Explicit wait deals with particular webelement. If script finds the required web element is present in the page, script moves on. If it does not find the mentioned web element, if finds that element in the web page for that particular wait period.

Orator

Answer 3

Implement WebDriverWait

public void waitForElement(WebDriver driver, WebElement element) {
    WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver,5);
    wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(element));

}

Ala

Answer 4

If a web element is not displaying and you want to wait for that element to be displayed then following code will work.

while(true) {
    boolean flag = driver.findElement(By.id("id_name")).isDisplayed();
    if(flag)
        break;
}

Shainashaine

The OP is asking about just waiting, not waiting for an Element. Aside from that, this code will fail and throw a TimeoutException if the page takes longer to load than the default implicit wait (I think it's 3 seconds). @Bart Van De Slijcke's answer is the correct way to wait for an Element on a slow page. – Wastage

Answer 5

I have made a dedicated video on a super easy workaround for this: Solving Implicit Wait Not Working Problem in Selenium Python (With Easy Steps) | DecodeMyCode

https://youtu.be/mEDn_wMQ2kg

Coddle

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