Selenium C# ElementNotVisibleException: element not interactable but the element is actually visible

Question

I\'m using Selenium.WebDriver for C# to ask a question on Quora just typing my question in notepad.

Everything worked fine since I had to post it.

To post it

Answer 1

As per the HTML you have shared to click on the element with text as Add Question as the element is within a Modal Dialog you need to induce WebDriverWait for the desired ElementToBeClickable and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies as solutions:

• LinkText:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20)).Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementToBeClickable(By.LinkText("Add Question"))).Click();
  

• CssSelector:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20)).Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementToBeClickable(By.CssSelector("span[id$='_submit_question']>a.submit_button.modal_action"))).Click();
  

• XPath:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20)).Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementToBeClickable(By.XPath("//span[contains(@id,'_submit_question')]/a[@class='submit_button modal_action' and contains(.,'Add Question')]"))).Click();
  

Answer 2

You might have a case where the button become displayed(visible) after your check is executed, so you might try following delay in order to ensure that the button is displayed at the time of check:

public static void WaitForElementToBecomeVisibleWithinTimeout(IWebDriver driver, 
    IWebElement element, int timeout)
{
    new WebDriverWait(driver,                 
        TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeout)).Until(ElementIsVisible(element));
}

private static Func<IWebDriver, bool> ElementIsVisible(IWebElement element)
{
    return driver =>
    {
        try
        {
            return element.Displayed;
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            // If element is null, stale or if it cannot be located
            return false;
        }
    };
}

If the button is not visible in the viewport(i.e. need scrolling to become visible) then you may scroll it with

public static void ScrollElementToBecomeVisible(IWebDriver driver, IWebElement element)
{
    IJavaScriptExecutor jsExec = (IJavaScriptExecutor)driver;
    jsExec.ExecuteScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", element);
}