Selenium Python does not close the child window

Question

I have webpage which open new browser window on click. I am able to get 2 handles however driver.close() always closes the first/main window.

from selenium import webdriver
import time
driver = webdriver.Chrome() 
driver.get("file:///D:/blackhole/print.html")
han = driver.window_handles
print("handles:", han) # gets 1 handle
time.sleep(2)
click_btn = driver.find_element_by_link_text('Print')
click_btn.click()
han = driver.window_handles
print("handles:", han) # gets 2 handles
driver.switch_to_window = han[1] # first element is always first window handle
driver.close() # main window close

Below webpage code which invokes new window

<a href="print.html"  
onclick="window.open('popprint.html', 
                    'newwindow', 
                    'width=300,height=250'); 
        return false;"
>Print</a>

Same behaviour for Firefox as well. Python 3.6.7

Headreach

I just tried running one of the tests (testShouldThrowNoSuchWindowExceptionOnAnyElementOperationIfAWindowIsClosed in python bindings of Selenium. The test is passing. Please have a look at github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/… Therefore, I feel that driver.close() is working fine. – Unipod

I tested with Python 3.7.0 on Windows too. The above stated test works fine. – Unipod

Yes it does. Main difference I have found it switch_to_window versus switch_to.window() . – Headreach

Answer 1

Selenium is unable to close the active window i.e the newly opened window because practically you havn't switched to the newly opened window in a clean way.

Solution

A few words about Tab/Window switching/handling:

• switch_to_window(window_name) is deprecated for quite some time now and you need to use driver.switch_to.window
• Always keep track of the Parent Window handle so you can traverse back later if required as per your usecase.
• Always use WebDriverWait with expected_conditions as number_of_windows_to_be(num_windows) before switching between Tabs/Windows.
• Always keep track of the Child Window handles so you can traverse whenever required.
• Always use WebDriverWait with expected_conditions as title_contains("partial_page_title") before extracting the Page Title.

• Here is your own code with some minor tweaks mentioned above:

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  
  driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'C:\WebDrivers\geckodriver.exe')
  driver.get("file:///D:/blackhole/print.html")
  parent_han  = driver.window_handles
  driver.find_element_by_link_text('Print').click()
  WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.number_of_windows_to_be(2))
  all_han = driver.window_handles
  new_han = [x for x in all_han if x != parent_han][0]
  driver.switch_to.window(new_han)
  driver.close()
  

• You can find a detailed discussion in Selenium Switch Tabs

Dupaix

+1 Thanks Deb for detailed answer and suggestions. Somehow switch_to_window did not show deprecated warning in my code. – Headreach

@Headreach Phasing out the deprecated methods and implementing newly developed methods is a part of best practice every developer should follow. However, unless removed deprecated methods should continue to work as expected. – Dupaix

Answer 2

driver.close() only closes the current window. To close all Windows and quit the webdriver, call driver.quit() instead.

Tainataint

Thanks though I want to close only newly opened window. Main window shall remain open. – Headreach