Stale element reference causes waitForElementVisible to fail even when the element is visible.

[rachna86]

Nightwatch version - 0.7.8
Browser - chrome 46.0
OS version - OS X Yosemite

I have the following code in my test -

browser.click('@element') 
.waitForElementVisible('@otherElement');

The waitForElementVisible command fails even when the element is visible on the page. In order to get around this issue I have to add a pause. On looking at the logs from the --verbose command option I see the following error:

ERROR Response 500 GET /wd/hub/session/da547091-91b7-4d4f-bd23-7bd70c5b48e6/element/9/displayed{ sessionId: 'da547091-91b7-4d4f-bd23-7bd70c5b48e6',
  status: 10,
  state: 'stale element reference',
  value: 
   { message: 'stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document\n  (Session info: chrome=46.0.2490.71)\n  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.18.343837 (52eb4041461e46a6b73308ebb19e85787ced4281),platform=Mac OS X 10.10.5 x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)\nCommand duration or timeout: 5 milliseconds\nFor documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/stale_element_reference.html\nBuild info: version: \'2.45.0\', revision: \'5017cb8\', time: \'2015-02-26 23:59:50\'\nSystem info: host: \'N/A\', ip: \'N/A\', os.name: \'Mac OS X\', os.arch: \'x86_64\', os.version: \'10.10.5\', java.version: \'1.7.0_71\'\nSession ID: e1483d8203011114ffff6f1b128d5d2e\nDriver info: org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver\nCapabilities [{platform=MAC, acceptSslCerts=true, javascriptEnabled=true, browserName=chrome, chrome={userDataDir=/var/folders/f6/06dqw47j0bx4lwl4g__8hh300000gn/T/.org.chromium.Chromium.Gkb0Im}, rotatable=false, locationContextEnabled=true, mobileEmulationEnabled=false, version=46.0.2490.71, takesHeapSnapshot=true, cssSelectorsEnabled=true, databaseEnabled=false, handlesAlerts=true, browserConnectionEnabled=false, webStorageEnabled=true, nativeEvents=true, hasTouchScreen=false, applicationCacheEnabled=false, takesScreenshot=true}]',
     suppressed: [],
     localizedMessage: 'stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document\n  (Session info: chrome=46.0.2490.71)\n  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.18.343837 (52eb4041461e46a6b73308ebb19e85787ced4281),platform=Mac OS X 10.10.5 x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)\nCommand duration or timeout: 5 milliseconds\nFor documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/stale_element_reference.html\nBuild info: version: \'2.45.0\', revision: \'5017cb8\', time: \'2015-02-26 23:59:50\'\nSystem info: host: \'N/A\', ip: \'N/A\', os.name: \'Mac OS X\', os.arch: \'x86_64\', os.version: \'10.10.5\', java.version: \'1.7.0_71\'\nSession ID: e1483d8203011114ffff6f1b128d5d2e\nDriver info: org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver\nCapabilities [{platform=MAC, acceptSslCerts=true, javascriptEnabled=true, browserName=chrome, chrome={userDataDir=/var/folders/f6/06dqw47j0bx4lwl4g__8hh300000gn/T/.org.chromium.Chromium.Gkb0Im}, rotatable=false, locationContextEnabled=true, mobileEmulationEnabled=false, version=46.0.2490.71, takesHeapSnapshot=true, cssSelectorsEnabled=true, databaseEnabled=false, handlesAlerts=true, browserConnectionEnabled=false, webStorageEnabled=true, nativeEvents=true, hasTouchScreen=false, applicationCacheEnabled=false, takesScreenshot=true}]',
     buildInformation: 
      { releaseLabel: '2.45.0',
        buildTime: '2015-02-26 23:59:50',
        class: 'org.openqa.selenium.internal.BuildInfo',
        buildRevision: '5017cb8',
        hCode: 592317409 },
     cause: null,
     systemInformation: 'System info: host: \'N/A\', ip: \'N/A\', os.name: \'Mac OS X\', os.arch: \'x86_64\', os.version: \'10.10.5\', java.version: \'1.7.0_71\'',
     supportUrl: 'http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/stale_element_reference.html',
     class: 'org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException',
     additionalInformation: '\nSession ID: e1483d8203011114ffff6f1b128d5d2e\nDriver info: org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver\nCapabilities [{platform=MAC, acceptSslCerts=true, javascriptEnabled=true, browserName=chrome, chrome={userDataDir=/var/folders/f6/06dqw47j0bx4lwl4g__8hh300000gn/T/.org.chromium.Chromium.Gkb0Im}, rotatable=false, locationContextEnabled=true, mobileEmulationEnabled=false, version=46.0.2490.71, takesHeapSnapshot=true, cssSelectorsEnabled=true, databaseEnabled=false, handlesAlerts=true, browserConnectionEnabled=false, webStorageEnabled=true, nativeEvents=true, hasTouchScreen=false, applicationCacheEnabled=false, takesScreenshot=true}]',
     hCode: 1902705498 },
  class: 'org.openqa.selenium.remote.Response',
  hCode: 1491989218 }
INFO Request: GET /wd/hub/session/da547091-91b7-4d4f-bd23-7bd70c5b48e6/element/9/displayed 
 - data:   
 - headers:  {"Accept":"application/json"}

WaitForElementVisible command should retry to find the element on getting the stale element reference error.

[sknopf]

Sounds like a good improvement, we already do this for expect - https://github.com/nightwatchjs/nightwatch/blob/master/lib/api/expect/_baseAssertion.js#L188

[RebootJeff]

This would be a problem for waitForElementPresent too, right?

[rachna86]

Apparently this issue is only for waitForElementVisible command.