python selenium webscraping "NoSuchElementException" not recognized
PythonExceptionSeleniumSelenium WebdriverPython Problem Overview
Sometimes on a page I'll be looking for an element which may or may not be there. I wanted to try/catch this case with a NoSuchElementException, which selenium was throwing when certain HTML elements didn't exist. Original exception:
NoSuchElementException: Message: u'Unable to locate element: {"method":"css selector","selector":"#one"}' ; Stacktrace:
at FirefoxDriver.prototype.findElementInternal_ (file:///var/folders/6q/7xcjtgyj32nfc2yp_y5tr9pm0000gn/T/tmp63Mz2a/extensions/[email protected]/components/driver_component.js:8899)
at FirefoxDriver.prototype.findChildElement (file:///var/folders/6q/7xcjtgyj32nfc2yp_y5tr9pm0000gn/T/tmp63Mz2a/extensions/[email protected]/components/driver_component.js:8911)
at DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_/h (file:///var/folders/6q/7xcjtgyj32nfc2yp_y5tr9pm0000gn/T/tmp63Mz2a/extensions/[email protected]/components/command_processor.js:10840)
at DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_ (file:///var/folders/6q/7xcjtgyj32nfc2yp_y5tr9pm0000gn/T/tmp63Mz2a/extensions/[email protected]/components/command_processor.js:10845)
at DelayedCommand.prototype.execute/< (file:///var/folders/6q/7xcjtgyj32nfc2yp_y5tr9pm0000gn/T/tmp63Mz2a/extensions/[email protected]/components/command_processor.js:10787)
Ironically, it won't let me catch this exception which it was throwing before? Code here:
elt = driver.find_element_by_css_selector('.information')
try:
dat1 = elt.find_element_by_css_selector('#one').text
dat2 = elt.find_elements_by_css_selector('#two')[1].text
text = dat1 + dat2
except NoSuchElementException:
text = elt.find_element_by_css_selector('#all').text
item.set_description(text)
Error here:
NameError: name 'NoSuchElementException' is not defined
Googling/documentation came up with nothing...and it strikes me as strange that selenium is fine throwing an exception but can't catch it.
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
You need to import the exception first
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
and then you can reference it
except NoSuchElementException:
# handle the element not existing
If you would like to give details of the exception in your output then you can use:
except NoSuchElementException as exc:
print(exc) # and/or other actions to recover
Solution 2 - Python
You sould use from selenium.common.exceptions import * and then write except NoSuchElementException