[FIXED] Selenium/Python Unable to use `:contains()` in CSS_SELECTOR

Issue

When I try to use :contains in Selenium's By.CSS_SELECTOR, such as

presence = EC.presence_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".btn:contains('Continue Shopping')"))

or

presence = EC.presence_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".btn\:contains('Continue Shopping')"))

or

presence = EC.presence_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".btn\\:contains('Continue Shopping')"))

the Python program crashes with the error

Exception: Message: invalid selector: An invalid or illegal selector was specified
  (Session info: chrome=95.0.4638.54)

Is it possible to use :contains in Selenium? The CSS selector

$('.btn:contains("Continue Shopping")')

works fine in Chrome's JS console.

Using Chrome 95.0.4638.54, ChromeDriver 95.0.4638.54, Python 3.10 on Ubuntu 20.04.

Solution

The selector :contains('text') is a jQuery selector, not a valid CSS selector like Selenium is expecting. I'm assuming the reason it works on the page via Chrome's DevTools console is because the page has jQuery defined on it.

Unfortunately, I do not believe you can directly select an element via its text using a CSS selector (link).

You have two options as far as I can see:

1. Alter your selector to be class or ID based (easiest)
2. Create a Selenium utility to run a JS script that uses this jQuery selector; e.g. execute_script("jQuery(" + id + ":contains('" + text + "')", id, text)

Answered By - aspok