Selenium can't find element, but element is on the https://login.aliexpress.com/ webpage

Question

On the website the selenium script cannot find the login and password fields. I tried to search by xpath, css selector, name and class name. But nothing worked.

from selenium import webdriver
from time import sleep
driver = webdriver.Firefox() 
driver.get("https://login.aliexpress.com/")
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-id").send_keys("test_id")
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-password").clear()
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-password").send_keys("test_pass")
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-submit").click()`

I tried to do this with the help of Selenium IDE, and everything worked in the GUI. But after I exported the code to python and ran it, the program gave an error that it could not find the element.

Answer 1

The login form is inside of a frame, you need to switch to it first.

from selenium import webdriver
from time import sleep
driver = webdriver.Firefox() 
driver.get("https://login.aliexpress.com/")

frame = driver.find_element_by_id("alibaba-login-box")
driver.switch_to.frame(frame)

driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-id").send_keys("test_id")
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-password").clear()
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-password").send_keys("test_pass")
driver.find_element_by_id("fm-login-submit").click()

Answer 2

However as the the desired elements are within an <iframe> so you have to:

• Induce WebDriverWait for the desired frame to be available and switch to it.
• Induce WebDriverWait for the desired elements to be clickable.

• You can use the following solution:

  • Using CSS_SELECTOR:

    from selenium import webdriver
    from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
    from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
    from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
    
    driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\geckodriver.exe')
    driver.get("https://login.aliexpress.com/")
    WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it((By.CSS_SELECTOR,"iframe#alibaba-login-box[src^='https://passport.aliexpress.com/mini_login.htm?']")))
    WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input.fm-text#fm-login-id"))).send_keys("test_id")
    driver.find_element_by_css_selector("input.fm-text#fm-login-password").send_keys("test_pass")
    driver.find_element_by_css_selector("input.fm-button#fm-login-submit").click()
    

• Interim Broswer Snapshot:

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  

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Reference

You can find a relevant discussion in

• Ways to deal with #document under iframe