PageObject "wait element" method don't work - ruby

Question

I'm working on test automation with cucumber, selenium-webdriver and page-object gem.
When I try to run simple test cucumber catch the following error:
Scenario: Going to billing # features/test.feature:10
When I click 'Платные услуги' # features/step_definitions/test_steps.rb:13
Unable to locate element: {"method":"link text","selector":"Платные услуги"} (Selenium::WebDriver::Error::NoSuchElementError)
[remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20130412-21410-z4p1ez/extensions/fxdriver#googlecode.com/components/driver_component.js:8405:in `FirefoxDriver.prototype.findElementInternal_'
[remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20130412-21410-z4p1ez/extensions/fxdriver#googlecode.com/components/driver_component.js:8414:in `FirefoxDriver.prototype.findElement'
[remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20130412-21410-z4p1ez/extensions/fxdriver#googlecode.com/components/command_processor.js:10421:in `DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_/h'
[remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20130412-21410-z4p1ez/extensions/fxdriver#googlecode.com/components/command_processor.js:10426:in `DelayedCommand.prototype.executeInternal_'
[remote server] file:///tmp/webdriver-profile20130412-21410-z4p1ez/extensions/fxdriver#googlecode.com/components/command_processor.js:10366:in `DelayedCommand.prototype.execute/<'
./features/pages/job_main_page.rb:38:in `go_to_billing'
./features/step_definitions/test_steps.rb:14:in `/^I click 'Платные услуги'$/'
features/test.feature:11:in `When I click 'Платные услуги''
Here is the cucumber feature:
Scenario: Going to billing
When I click 'Платные услуги'
Then I should see "Коммерческие услуги"
Step definition where test falls:
When(/^I go to billing$/) do
#job_myroom_billing = #job_myroom.billing_element.when_visible.go_to_billing
end
And page object:
class BasePage
include PageObject
include RSpec::Matchers
end
class JobMyroom < BasePage
link :billing, link: 'Платные услуги'
def go_to_billing
billing
JobMyroomBilling.new #browser
end
end
class JobMyroomBilling < JobMyroom
#some code
end
Whats wrong? Driver don't wait the element's presence

Answer 1

I think Sheg is giving some good advice here although I would tend to do it slightly different:
wait_until do
billing_element.visible?
end
Another thing you can do that is very similar is to replace the code in your method with this:
def go_to_billing
billing_element.when_present.click
JobMyroomBilling.new #browser
end
In this case we are waiting until the link is present and when it is the when_present method returns the element and we simply click on it.
Another thing I might suggest is using watir-webdriver as the driver instead of selenium-webdriver. watir-webdriver is built on top of selenium-webdriver but seems the have far better handling of waiting for items to actually be loaded on the DOM. If your link is being added dynamically using Ajax then you will have to write some code to wait until it is there before actually interacting with it. The only thing you will have to do to use the other gem is change the code in your Before block to this:
Before do
#browser = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
end
Another pointer I would give you is to not have one page object return an instance of the next page object. I am eating my own words here because a few years ago this is how I did it but I have found over time that this is a brittle approach. Instead, I would use the PageObject::PageFactory to manage the creation of the correct pages and when you have a step that is a generic step you can simply use the #current_page instance variable.
The last pointer I will give you is to remove the assertions from your page object. I would have the page object simply provide the abstraction and perform all verification in the step definitions. This is a much cleaner separation of concerns and will make maintaining your tests easier over time.

Answer 2

either you can use sleep methode from java with try catch. or implicitwait for selenium webdriver.
Webdriver never wait for the element to be displayed... basically you need the delay.

Answer 3

The page object when_visible method is meant to wait for Ajax events to finish loading, as mentioned here https://github.com/cheezy/page-object/wiki/Ajax-Calls.
If webdriver is trying to click on the link element before it is completely rendered, and is not Ajax related, consider waiting until the element is displayed with webdriver first. For example:
wait.until { driver.find_element(:link_text => "Платные услуги").displayed? }
#job_myroom.go_to_billing
You could (highly recommended) implicitly do this with all elements by invoking the following right after you instantiate your webdriver:
driver.manage.timeouts.implicit_wait = 3
In addition, in many situations, I have found that locating links by href performs a lot better than link_text. Perhaps these could solve your element timing issues.