StaleElementReference Exception in PageFactory

Question

I am trying to learn the PageFactory model. I understood the fact that when we do a initElements, the WebElements are located. Say for example, I click on a web

Answer 1

This is a known problem with the PageFactory implementation.

If you are unlucky enough for the element to become stale in the instant between the element being found, and then the element being clicked upon, you will get this error. Unfortunately the PageFactory code does not try to find the element again if it has become stale and it throws an Exception.

I would classify this as a bug with PageFactory, it should auto re-find the element if it ever becomes stale (unless the @CacheLookup annotation is used).

The suggestion to recall initElements isn't going to fix anything, you only need to init the elements once because that binds a Java proxy class to the element in question. The page factory implementation is supposed to remove the possibility of StaleElementReferenceExceptions (hence why this is a bug)