Handling Unexpected Tab Closure and Navigation Issues with SeleniumBase

[benfrankie]

Hi,

I am using SeleniumBase for web automation and have encountered an issue where occasionally driver.get(url) results in the current tab being closed and a new tab being opened. This behavior causes a loss of the previous page's context, including its scroll position. I attempted to use driver.execute_script("window.history.go(-1)") to navigate back, but it doesn't work if the original tab is closed. Is this a known behavior with SeleniumBase, or could it be related to specific browser settings or website behavior?

Also, is there a way to ensure navigation happens within the same tab and to retain the scroll position of the previous page?

Thanks!

[mdmintz]

Hello. What you're describing is the default behavior in UC Mode when you use driver.get(url) to open a URL that has bot-detection software running on it. The current tab is replaced with a clean one (that doesn't have any traces of Selenium from within the Chrome browser console) and the new URL is opened.

You can use driver.default_get(url) to open the new URL in the current tab without using UC Mode. Or you can try driver.uc_open(url), which has better anti-detection mechanisms than driver.default_get(url), but it's not as good as driver.get(url) / driver.uc_open_with_tab(url) / driver.uc_open_with_reconnect(url, reconnect_time) (which close the current tab and open a new one).

This is all covered in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dMFI3e85ig

[benfrankie]

Is there a recommended SeleniumBase method or practice for handling scenarios where navigating back to a previous page requires re-locating elements to avoid stale element references, especially in a script that involves frequent navigation between pages? @mdmintz

I apologize if this was also covered in your video – I watched it a couple times but might have been a bit distracted by the Star Wars clips. I'm still new to the technical aspects and currently learning with the help of ChatGPT. :-) Thank you!

[mdmintz]

Every time you navigate to a page, (even if going back to a page you were on before), you have to find / re-find the element. Any elements you found from a previous page load will lead to a StaleElementReferenceException if you try to use those elements without re-finding them first.