Selenium: How to click in a link image inside webtable?

Question

I have the following table in my page (.html):

<table>
 <thead>
  <td>Id</td>
  <td>Descricao</td>
  <td>Quant</td>
  <td>Preco</td>
  <td>Acoes Disponiveis</td>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <td>1</td>
   <td>Item Produto XMasInicial</td>
   <td>20</td>
   <td>2.30</td>
   <td>
    <a href="passoInicial.html">Cadastrar Outro</a> 
    <a href="passoInicial.html"><img src="exit.png" /></a>
   </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>2</td>
   <td>Item Produto XMasFinal</td>
   <td>50</td>
   <td>1.90</td>
   <td>
    <a href="passoFinal.html">Ficar na mesma</a>
    <a href="passoFinal.html"><img src="exit.png" /></a>
   </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>3</td>
   <td>Item Produto XMasGoogle</td>
   <td>50</td>
   <td>1.90</td>
   <td>
    <a href="paginaVazia.html">Ir para o Google</a> 
    <a href="paginaVazia.html"><img src="exit.png" /></a>
   </td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

I need to test this page: the click in the "exit.png" image (that's a link). I write the following piece of code (in a for statement, from i=0 to 2), but it is not working:

List<WebElement> imgLinks = this.webDriver.findElements(By.xpath("//img[contains(@src,'exit.png')]"));
for(...) {
imgLinks.get(i).click();
//some code to return for this html page (back) and click in the next image...
}

The result is the following error:

org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document

I used //a/img[contains(@src,'exit.png')] instead of //img[contains(@src,'exit.png')], but it doesn't work any away.

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

The issue is that when you click a link, the collection of links in imgLinks immediately becomes stale. Going back to the page, and trying to interact with the imgLinks list is going to result in a state element reference error.

This approach should work for you. It will get a new list each time you return to the page.

List<WebElement> imgLinks = this.webDriver.findElements(By.xpath("//img[contains(@src,'exit.png')]"));
int imgLinksLength = imgLinks.size();
for(int i = 0; i < imgLinksLength ; i++) {
    List<WebElement> imgLinks = this.webDriver.findElements(By.xpath("//img[contains(@src,'exit.png')]"));
    imgLinks.get(i).click();
    //some code to return for this html page (back) and click in the next image...
}