Webdriver sometime skips date field

Question

I have a date field that sometimes will get filled out by Webdriver element.sendKeys() and other times the field will just get skipped. (using Chromedriver 2.9).

Element Locator Info:

<input id="dateOfBirth" type="date" class=" form-control " placeholder="">

The code for Entering text and re-trying if fails:

//Web element already verified present and visible before being passed into the method
public static void enterText(WebElement weElement, String textToEnter) {

            System.out.println("    *Thread:" +Thread.currentThread().getId() +" INFO: EnteringText: "  +textToEnter);
            //weElement.click(); 
            weElement.sendKeys(textToEnter);  
            String textEntered = weElement.getAttribute("value");
            System.out.println("    *Thread:" +Thread.currentThread().getId() +" INFO: TextDisplayed is: "+ textEntered);
            //continued
            int iAttempts = 0;
            while (iAttempts < 1) {
                if(!textEntered.isEmpty())
                    break;
                else{
                    System.out.println("    *Thread:" +Thread.currentThread().getId() +" ERROR: re-Attempting to enter text: "+ textToEnter);

                    //weElement.click();
                    weElement.sendKeys(textToEnter);
                    textEntered= weElement.getAttribute("value");
                    System.out.println("    *Thread:" +Thread.currentThread().getId() +" INFO: Element text after re-attempt: "+ textEntered);
                    iAttempts++;
                }

                }

            }

The console output:

*Thread:10 Trying:  com.xxx.pageobjects.IdentityPage.typeDOB
    *Thread:10 INFO: Locator is: [data-model-attribute='dateOfBirth'] input
    *Thread:10 INFO: EnteringText: 01/01/1981
    *Thread:10 INFO: TextDisplayed is: 
    *Thread:10 ERROR: re-Attempting to enter text: 01/01/1981
    *Thread:10 INFO: Element text after re-attempt:

Does anyone have any ideas as to why this happens only with date fields? And any ideas for a better workaround in case it fails? Thanks!

Note: My app only works on Chrome so I am unable to confirm if the issue happens in other browsers

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 07 '14 at 06:55

2

We are getting the same error with the date field. Particularly with recent chrome browser upgrade to version 34. Try rollback to version 33. It should work.

answered May 07 '14 at 06:55

Amrit

433
3
19

Hmm this seems to be helping. I'll close this out for now and will re-open if it rears its ugly head again. – HRVHackers May 14 '14 at 15:20

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 11 '14 at 10:15

I got around this issue by executing some javascript to fill out date fields.

protected void FillOutDate(string cssSelector, DateTime date)
    {
        var js = Driver as IJavaScriptExecutor;
        if (js != null) js.ExecuteScript(string.Format("$('{0}').val('{1}').change()", cssSelector,date.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd")));
    }

OR simply

  ((IJavaScriptExecutor)Driver).ExecuteScript("$('#IdSelector').val('2014-06-11').change()");

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 17 '14 at 19:47

1

According to your console output, you are using an incorrect locator. Seeming is that I don't see the data-model-attribute attr anywhere, let's use the ID.

enterText(driver.findElement(By.id("dateOfBirth")), "test");

answered Apr 17 '14 at 19:47

ddavison

28,221
15
85
110

Thanks, but the locator is correct. Before webElement is passed into the function, I check that it's both visible and present in an earlier method. data-model-attribute is from a parent element and works fine with other text fields; it only randomly fails with date fields – HRVHackers Apr 17 '14 at 20:29
btw, I was just checking out your profile on air pair, and here you are attempting at answering my question. Surely the programming gods have brought us together :) – HRVHackers Apr 18 '14 at 00:13

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 18 '14 at 05:30

0

I believe the input type of "date" is new to html 5 and requires a specific to the RFC 3339: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt

Try using 1981-01-01 and it should work. YYYY-MM-DD instead of MM/DD/YYYY as you have provided.

answered Apr 18 '14 at 05:30

DMart

2,401
1
14
19

That sounded good but didn't work unfortunately. Also the app expects the date to be entered as as MM/DD/YYYY when I entered it as YYYY-MM-DD, the result wasn't a proper date: *Thread:1 INFO: EnteringText: 1981-11-01 *Thread:1 INFO: Text Entered was: 11101-12-08 – HRVHackers Apr 18 '14 at 06:53
Where is the "Text Entered" line coming from its not in the code snippet above? Is it possible this field is readonly? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12419339/not-able-to-input-date-using-sendkeys-in-selenium-webdriver – DMart Nov 26 '14 at 16:31

Webdriver sometime skips date field

4 Answers4