Interacting with pop-up boxes using selenium in python

Question

I'm trying to use the Selenium module in python to generate a text list from one website, save it in a directory, and browse to that text list on another site to submit it.

I'm working on the script in two parts- 1. Get metadata and 2. Order data. I've successfully completed the script in part 1, except for the very last thing: Choosing to save the metadata file that was just generated. I left it alone to work on part 2, hoping I would stumble upon the answer, but I'm just reaching to same problem when the pop-up to choose file comes along.

In the documentation, I'm told that Selenium WebDriver has built-in support for handling popup dialog boxes and that after triggering a dialog box, if I call alert = driver.switch_to_alert() then I can "accept, dismiss, read its contents, or even type into a prompt."

However, it's not working. When I try alert.text('some text') or alert.send_keys(Keys.TAB), I keep getting the error NoAlertPresentException: Message: No alert is present and after adding the command to wait, I get the error TimeoutException: Message:

Are the popups I'm getting (screenshots attached) not recognized by Selenium? If so, how do I interact with them? It seems like using this to save and/or upload files is something that many people have to do, but I cannot find anything on Google. Specifically, I would like to choose 'Save File' then 'OK' for the first image and for the second I would like to browse to the file (i.e. enter the path into the file name field) and click 'Open.' I don't want to just change my Firefox settings to automatically save because this will eventually be run in a different environment, and that won't help solve my second problem.

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm testing my script on windows but it will eventually be implemented on a linux cloud server. I thought I was going to have to switch to PhantomJS webdriver (which was probably going to make my problem worse) to do headless browsing but I found a way to keep firefox. I guess all this means is that I can't use AutoIT to fix my problem.

save dialog

driver.switchto.alert(in Java) we use for JavaScript dialogs. They are alertbox, conformationbox and Popupbox. But the dialog you are seeing is not belongs to any of the above, so you cannot handle with Alert. For detailed explanation of alerts you can watch video youtube.com/watch?v=3T0YaroB2fk. You may need to try AutoIT etc.. for ur problem. — Uday
– Uday, Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 3:53
You can try out something equivalent to Robot class in java. — Vivek Singh
– Vivek Singh, Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 6:44

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:17:27Z

5

The popups you see are not regular popups that can be interacted with using switch_to. These popups are system dialogs and cannot be automated using selenium.

Usually people avoid having these dialogs shown in the first place by tweaking browser preferences, e.g.:

For uploading, usually you can find the appropriate input element and send keys to it with a path to the file:

^{Let me know if your case cannot be solved by using the answers in the links I've attached.}

As for your first, "download file automatically" problem, you just need to set a correct content-type:

profile.set_preference('browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk', "application/xml,text/xml")

Second problem fix (upload part):

driver.find_element_by_name("input_product_list").send_keys(textpath)
driver.find_element_by_name('include_sr').click()
driver.find_element_by_id('submit').click()

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:17

CommunityBot

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answered Jan 5, 2015 at 22:34

alecxe

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12 Comments

user20408 Over a year ago

Hi alec, thanks for your response. I've looked at every single selenium/upload files thread that I can find and still no solution. I went to all three of your links RE tweaking browser preferences and none of them worked for me-- the pop-up box to open/save file still appears. For uploading, I've tried finding the input element, clicking and sending keys in every way possible, but that didn't work either. I think the reason for that is, if you go to the second website I linked to, you'll see there is no text box for the path to the file. You can only open a file by clicking browse and...

user20408 Over a year ago

...entering the pathname there/browsing to the file interactively. So since selenium can't interact with these OS dialog boxes, is there another module that can? Or another hack to work around this issue? Please note that I added an edit describing how this will be implemented in linux, so I can't use autoIT. Literally the most frustrating thing I've worked on yet, as I'm so close to being done if it were not for this one problem. Urgh.

alecxe Over a year ago

@user20408 we'll solve it, don't worry. Let's do it step by step though. For starters, let's work on the download part - can you show the code you have for clicking that download metadata.xml file button - so that I can test it? Thanks.

user20408 Over a year ago

Thanks alec, I really appreciate your willingness to help. Would it be better for me to just send the script your way? How should I go about doing that? I don't have enough rep to do much of anything here. Thank you.

alecxe Over a year ago

@user20408 just edit the question and include it there. If it is large, create a gist and post a link here. Thanks.

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eaccmk · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-26 09:42:29Z

Extremely simple implementation using AutoIT.

Below scripts and steps can hely you to click on 'Save>OK' on this window's pop-UP

Step 1: Download AutoIT package/tool here AutoIt You may select ZIP format (extract it)

Step 2: Open any text editor (say notepad) and copy below code and save with extension .au3
(e.g file.au3)

WinWait("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]","", 10)
If WinExists("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]") Then
WinActivate("[TITLE:Opening ; CLASS:MozillaDialogClass]")
Send("{DOWN}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{TAB}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{TAB}")
Sleep(20)
Send("{ENTER}")
EndIf

Step 3: From extracted zip (Step 1) look for folder named: Aut2Exe and open it

Step 4: Click Aut2exe_x64.exe if your OS is 64 bit otherwise click Aut2exe.exe

Step 5: Browse/Locate file created in Step2. (file saved as extension .a3) AND Choose Destination (.exe/.a3x) and select .exe option (say file.exe) AND then Click convert

Step 6: include this file.exe in your project folder and use it as per your requirement using below code (as it is in Eclipse):

driver.dwonload().click(); // it can be something else as per your flow
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:/*path_to_your_EXE_file(selected in step 6))*/file.exe");

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