why am I getting StaleElementReferenceException?

[Bryan Oakley]

I'm using the webdriver python bindings to connect to a remote
webdriver. I'm getting a StaleElementReferenceException and I don't
understand why. I'm getting it when I call find_elements_by_tag_name
after clicking on a link that causes a new page to load.

I understand why I would get this if I found an element, refreshed the
page, then tried to use the element. In this case, however, I'm
waiting for the page to load and then simply trying to get (but not
yet use) an element.

I'm using selenium-server-standalone-2.4.0.jar and the 2.4.0 python
bindings with python 2.7

Here's the relevant bits of my code:

driver = webdriver.Remote(
command_executor = SeHUB,
desired_capabilities = {
"browserName": "internet explorer",
}
)
driver.implicitly_wait(10)
driver.get(ROOT)

## proof that find_elements_by_tag_name isn't fundamentally
## busted
elements = driver.find_elements_by_tag_name("div")
print "elements", elements

## log in to the application
element = driver.find_element_by_id(USERNAME_FIELD)
element.send_keys(USERNAME)
element = driver.find_element_by_id(PASSWORD_FIELD)
element.send_keys(PASSWORD)
button = driver.find_element_by_id(LOGIN_BUTTON)
button.click()

## artificial time to wait for the page to load
time.sleep(5)

## same call as before, but this throws the exception
## StaleElementReferenceException
elements = driver.find_elements_by_tag_name("div")
print "elements", elements

driver.quit()
print "success!"

[Luke Inman-Semerau]

You need to downgrade the server to 2.3, there's a bug in 2.4.  You can leave the python code for 2.4, just use server-standalone version 2.3 (and only remote calls, if you use firefox or ie direct, then you'll need to replace the xpi and dll respectively in your python site-packages/selenium directory with the ones that are in the jar).

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[Bryan Oakley]

Thank you for the quick reply. And sure enough, downgrading solved my problem.