Unable to identify UI Element in WebPage

[Meyammai]

Hey,
I am trying to automate data entry from excel to web page (Net Cracker).

I have tried using IE and Chrome as my browser type, but I still do get issues with identifying the UI Element.
Especially the scenario where I will need to scroll the webpage to identify the fields.

I have tried different activities like:

1. Hover
2. Find Element
3. Click
4. Type Into
5. Anchor
6. Indicate on Screen
7. Find Image
8. Find Relative Element

But still unable to identify the UI Element.

I have also tried inspecting the webpage and passing the same Id to the selectors.

On Properties → Target → Selector , I validate the selector before running, but after running it changes back to not being validated.

Also I do send the hotkeys activity (Page Down), so that the field is visible but still no luck.

Please Advise.

[Marius_Puscasu]

Hi @Meyammai ,

Perhaps you should also try the Set Focus activity https://docs.uipath.com/activities/docs/set-focus.
It sets keyboard focus to a specific UI element, in your case the fields you are looking for.

Best regards,
Marius

[Meyammai]

Hello @Marius_Puscasu , thank you for your reply but it doesn’t seem to work either.
Error: Set Focus ‘IMG’: Could not find the UI element corresponding to this selector:
[1]
[2]

Search failed at selector tag:
[1]

The closest matches found are:
[97%]
[61%]

[Marius_Puscasu]

@Meyammai

Especially the scenario where I will need to scroll the webpage to identify the fields.

Your webpage is not loading all the data when you are open it. It’s about website’s performance. First time when you’re opening it, you do not have all the data loaded.
You have to scroll down in order to add new data to your page.

Hence, you have to simulate somehow in uipath the “scroll down” activity in order to be able to click (or whatever you want) afterwards

Please check this similar topic:

TUI Scrape data until no more search results

Hi All, I was just wondering if there is a way to scrape all the locations from each place (meaning the dynamic 200+ amount which isn’t loaded as one page) I understand you can use Page down or end with element exists but If I put element exists for the bottom of the page it will end shortly if the page doesn’t load quick enough. TUI Holidays webpage Thanks in advance

Best regards,
Marius

[Meyammai]

Hey, I tried the similar workflow in the attached link and it doesn’t seem to work. I also tried to add in a hotkeys activity to scroll down and it doesn’t work either.
The webpage I am trying to automate only allows access through my organization’s VPN. Could that be a reason why I am facing issues? Though it does allow me to log in and submit the first page which is just a field and a click with no scrolling.

[Meyammai]

I also tried automation other pages, like facebook and webforms, and it doesn’t have any issues.
I tried inspecting the webform and I came across uipath_custom_id - Do you think this could help anyways?

[Marius_Puscasu]

@Meyammai

I came across uipath_custom_id

Hi @Meyammai ,

Please check this explanation provided by UiPath:

Web: provoking uipath_custom_id creation

Hello @RPraschma, The uipath_custom_id attribute is indeed created by the browser plugin but it’s something that the plugin uses internally and offers no guarantees when it comes to predictability. So you should definitely not include it in your selectors. Can you post some more details about your scenario? The application you’re trying to automate or some selectors would help.

In conclusion, you should definitely not include the uipath_custom_id attribute in your selectors

I also tried to add in a hotkeys activity to scroll down and it doesn’t work either.

Could you please say exactly what is not working? Does the UiPath activity throws errors? Did you try to tick/untick the SendWindowMessages option or the Activate option from the Send Hotkey activity and see whether it’s working or not?

In order to find out a solution, could you please share your workflow? and/or some prints with your valid selector?

Thank you!
Best regards,
Marius

[Meyammai]

Commenting back to this question, in case anyone else is facing a similar issue.
This has been solved, the root issue was that each time the page reloaded, the UI element (id) changed according to the id generated for the page.

For instance, if the URL was:

samplee.com

the UI Element id = objectid_1234

if the URL was:

samplee.com

the UI Element id = objectid_9876

To overcome this scenario,

1. use the get attribute to fetch the URL
2. trim the string to only obtain the ID and save it to a variable X
3. use assign function and assign variable Y to the concatenation of objectid and variable X like
   < webctrl id=‘id__objectid_"& X & "’ / >
4. pass variable Y as the selector under Target.

Thanks,
Meya