selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: The argument provided is not valid: 'name' must be a string when transitioning between window handles using Selenium

Question

selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: The argument provided is not valid: 'name' must be a string when transitioning between window handles using Selenium

Whenever I try to use the following code snippet:

driver.execute_script("window.open('');")
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])
driver.get(url)
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0])

An error is thrown at me.

selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: invalid argument: 'name' must be a string

The same issue arises when any code containing

driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])

is executed. This problem completely disrupts the functionality of the code. I am using Opera browser and it's becoming quite frustrating.

Complete traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\websitemonitorcsshtml\switchtab.py", line 11, i
n <module>
    driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\Giraffe\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriv
er\remote\switch_to.py", line 134, in window
    self._w3c_window(window_name)
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\Giraffe\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriv
er\remote\switch_to.py", line 143, in _w3c_window
    send_handle(window_name)
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\Giraffe\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriv
er\remote\switch_to.py", line 139, in send_handle
    self._driver.execute(Command.SWITCH_TO_WINDOW, {'handle': h})
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\Giraffe\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriv
er\remote\webdriver.py", line 418, in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
  File "C:\Users\user\PycharmProjects\Giraffe\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriv
er\remote\errorhandler.py", line 243, in check_response
    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: invalid argument: 'name'
 must be a string
  (Session info: chrome=95.0.4638.69)
  (Driver info: operadriver=95.0.4638.54 (d31a821ec901f68d0d34ccdbaea45b4c86ce543e-ref
s/branch-heads/4638@{#871}),platform=Windows NT 10.0.19042 x86_64)

Below is the complete piece of code:

from selenium import webdriver 
from selenium.webdriver.opera.options import Options 

options = Options() 
options.add_experimental_option('excludeSwitches', ['enable-logging']) 
DRIVER_PATH = 'C:\Python27\Scripts\operadriver.exe' 
driver = webdriver.Opera(options=options, executable_path=DRIVER_PATH)
driver.get("stackoverflow.com/")
driver.execute_script("window.open('');")
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])
driver.get("github.com/")
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0])

python selenium selenium-webdriver window-handles invalidargumentexception

Answer 1

Answer №1

Window Switching

To switch windows in Selenium using Python, follow these steps:

store the parent window handle for future use:
window_before  = driver.current_window_handle

After opening a new window, store all window handles in a list.
```
windows_after = driver.window_handles
```
Instead of using indexes to switch windows, utilize List Comprehension to find the new window handle:
```
new_window = [x for x in windows_after if x != window_before][0]
```

Solution

Here is the complete code block for window switching:

driver.get("https://stackoverflow.com/")
window_before = driver.current_window_handle
print("First Window Handle is : %s" %window_before)
print("Page Title before Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.execute_script("window.open('','_blank');")
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.number_of_windows_to_be(2))
windows_after = driver.window_handles
new_window = [x for x in windows_after if x != window_before][0]
driver.switch_to.window(new_window)
driver.get("https://www.selenium.dev/")
print("Second Window Handle is : %s" %new_window)
print("Page Title after Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.switch_to.window(window_before)
print("Window Handle is : %s" %window_before)
print("Page Title after Reverse Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.quit()

Don't forget to include the following imports:

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Console Output:

First Window Handle is : CDwindow-9E723D48DFB59B9B6BCB992EFE3C6695
Page Title before Tab Switching is : Stack Overflow - Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers
Second Window Handle is : CDwindow-9CCD4B7DD7F5916788A422F24D476BC8
Page Title after Tab Switching is : Selenium
Window Handle is : CDwindow-9E723D48DFB59B9B6BCB992EFE3C6695
Page Title after Reverse Tab Switching is : Stack Overflow - Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers

Answer 2

Window Switching

To switch windows in Selenium using Python, follow these steps:

store the parent window handle for future use:
window_before  = driver.current_window_handle

After opening a new window, store all window handles in a list.
```
windows_after = driver.window_handles
```
Instead of using indexes to switch windows, utilize List Comprehension to find the new window handle:
```
new_window = [x for x in windows_after if x != window_before][0]
```

Solution

Here is the complete code block for window switching:

driver.get("https://stackoverflow.com/")
window_before = driver.current_window_handle
print("First Window Handle is : %s" %window_before)
print("Page Title before Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.execute_script("window.open('','_blank');")
WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.number_of_windows_to_be(2))
windows_after = driver.window_handles
new_window = [x for x in windows_after if x != window_before][0]
driver.switch_to.window(new_window)
driver.get("https://www.selenium.dev/")
print("Second Window Handle is : %s" %new_window)
print("Page Title after Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.switch_to.window(window_before)
print("Window Handle is : %s" %window_before)
print("Page Title after Reverse Tab Switching is : %s" %driver.title)
driver.quit()

Don't forget to include the following imports:

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Console Output:

First Window Handle is : CDwindow-9E723D48DFB59B9B6BCB992EFE3C6695
Page Title before Tab Switching is : Stack Overflow - Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers
Second Window Handle is : CDwindow-9CCD4B7DD7F5916788A422F24D476BC8
Page Title after Tab Switching is : Selenium
Window Handle is : CDwindow-9E723D48DFB59B9B6BCB992EFE3C6695
Page Title after Reverse Tab Switching is : Stack Overflow - Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers

Answer 3

Answer №2

If you are encountering issues when trying to switch to a tab that may not have been fully created yet, it could be due to timing. To check this, print out the list of available window_handles after calling window.open and verify if it contains the expected number of tabs. If there is only one tab listed and you are attempting to access a second one, an error message stating that 'name' (tab id) must be a string will be displayed.

To resolve this issue, it is advisable to wait until the number of tabs increases (after opening something in the new tab) and then proceed with switching once this condition has been met.

Answer 4

If you are encountering issues when trying to switch to a tab that may not have been fully created yet, it could be due to timing. To check this, print out the list of available window_handles after calling window.open and verify if it contains the expected number of tabs. If there is only one tab listed and you are attempting to access a second one, an error message stating that 'name' (tab id) must be a string will be displayed.

To resolve this issue, it is advisable to wait until the number of tabs increases (after opening something in the new tab) and then proceed with switching once this condition has been met.

selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: The argument provided is not valid: 'name' must be a string when transitioning between window handles using Selenium

Answer №1

Window Switching

Solution

Answer №2

Similar questions

PhantomJS occasionally fails to close (while using Python with Selenium)

Using the key from a nested CSV file as the primary key in Python

Changing Field Order in csv Using Python (Utilizing Numpy or Pandas)

When the Addmore button is clicked, a new text box with the same ID and class name will be generated and sent to the text box of ClientName

What is the most effective Xpath for retrieving text from <td> elements when there is text present in both?

Error message: "The specified file could not be found in the

An error of 'Address already being used' encountered while utilizing cookiecutter-flask

Looking for a method to modify the default block settings for pop-ups and redirects to allow in Chrome using Selenium with Java?

How can I locate the object labeled as "Current" in Selenium?

Receiving a LoadError in Ruby selenium-webdriver while attempting to automate a script

Watir does not have time to wait for the page to finish loading

Python script to locate the identical sentence in two separate files

Utilize an unspecified quantity of variables to store the results generated by a function

Combine an array with a JSON object in Python

Opera and Robotframework integration on Windows system

What are the steps to display a graph on a webpage using AJAX in Django?

Looking for assistance to finish my code. Just a heads up, I am new to Python and could use

Python - Retrieve the temporary directory

Utilizing Beautiful Soup for Web Scraping and Retrieving Dynamic JavaScript Code

Unable to find the element within an iframe using Selenium while searching for a dictionary definition