Python selenium: Element not interactable

Question

I tried to code a web automation with python but always get the error warning:

selenium.common.exceptions.ElementNotInteractableException: Message: element not interactable

Here is the code:

def commentAndLike():
random.seed()
likeOrNext = random.randint(0, 3)

if likeOrNext == 0:
    if check_exists_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[1]/span[1]/button/span"):
        likeButton = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[1]/span[1]/button/span")
        likeButton.click()

        time.sleep(randomNumber(6, 10))

        if check_exists_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[1]/span[2]/button/span"):
            random.seed()
            randomComment = random.randint(0, 3)

            textArea = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[3]/div[1]/form/textarea")

            if randomComment == 0:
                textArea.send_keys(comments[0])
            elif randomComment == 1:
                textArea.send_keys(comments[1])
            elif randomComment == 2:
                textArea.send_keys(comments[2])
            elif randomComment == 3:
                textArea.send_keys(comments[3])

            time.sleep(randomNumber(15,30))

            postButton = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[3]/div/form/button")
            postButton.click()

            time.sleep(randomNumber(20,25))

            nextButton2 = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[1]/div/div/a[2]")
            nextButton2.click()

            time.sleep(randomNumber(15,20))

        else:
            nextButton4 = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[1]/div/div/a[2]")
            nextButton4.click()

            time.sleep(randomNumber(20, 25))

    else:
        nextButton1 = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[1]/div/div/a[2]")
        nextButton1.click()

        time.sleep(randomNumber(20, 25))

else:
    nextButton = browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[3]/div[1]/div/div/a[2]")
    nextButton.click()

    time.sleep(randomNumber(20,25))

The error gets thrown when attempting to send_keys to the textArea element.

I know I will still have to improve the code and shorten the nextButton out, but I want to solve the problems at first. Thank you for all your help!!

Answer 1

Modified based on problem description where sending keys to textArea is throwing an error.

You can try to use Javascript to set the value of the textarea:

browser.execute_script("arguments[0].value = 'myValue';", textArea)

If this does not work, you could try clicking the textArea to activate it first:

browser.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", textArea)

browser.execute_script("arguments[0].value = 'myValue';", textArea);

In your case, you would replace 'myValue' with ' + comments[0] + '

Answer 2

This kind of exception is thrown to indicate that although an element is present on the DOM, it is not in a state that can be interacted with. You can try to implement some kind of wait mechanism, preferably an explicit one like this:

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

textArea = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(
    EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "/html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/article/div[2]/section[3]/div[1]/form/textarea"))