[FIXED] Python Selenium unintentional click problem

Issue

I am trying to get followers with python selenium. But sometimes python clicks by itself. I want to make an error-free program. I try to I've tried "try catch" constructs but it didn't work. Here is my code:

def getFollowers(self):
        try:
            self.browser.get(f"https://www.instagram.com/{self.username}")
            time.sleep(2)
            followers=self.browser.find_element_by_xpath("//*[@id='react-root']/section/main/div/header/section/ul/li[2]/a").click()
            time.sleep(2)
            dialog=self.browser.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[5]/div/div/div[2]")
            followerCount=len(dialog.find_elements_by_tag_name("li"))
            print(f"first count:{followerCount}")
            action=webdriver.ActionChains(self.browser)
//*******************************************Probly my problem is here****************************************
            while True:
                dialog.click()
                action.key_down(Keys.SPACE).key_up(Keys.SPACE).perform()
                time.sleep(3)
                newCount=len(dialog.find_elements_by_tag_name("li"))
                if followerCount!=newCount or newCount==24:
                    print(f"New count:{newCount}")
                    time.sleep(3)
                    followerCount=newCount
                else:
                    break
//**********************************************************************************************************
            followers=dialog.find_elements_by_tag_name("li")
            followersList=[]
            for user in followers:
                link=user.find_element_by_css_selector("a").get_attribute("href")
                # print(link)
                followersList.append(link)
            with open("followers.txt","w",encoding="UTF-8") as file:
                for item in followersList:
                    file.write(item+"\n")
            time.sleep(5)
        except:
            pass

I also have def getfollowing and it works flawlessly. If you want I can show it too. But they are almost same.

EDIT: @RohanShah solved my problem. At the bottom of the page you can see the solution.

Edit: I am new here thats why sometimes my questions could be meanless.But please dont decrease my points. Stackoverflow not gonna accept my questions anymore. Please increase my points.

Solution

I've had this exact same problem while scrolling the popups. What happens is your dialog.click(), while attempting to focus your key down on the popup, occasionally clicks a user and loads their profile. Your script then crashes as the popup is no longer on the screen.

After a lot of research into solving this problem, I noticed it only happens with usernames that are long. Regardless, I implemented a simple hack to get around this problem.

1. First we get the url of what the standard scroll looks like. When opening and scrolling the popup, this is the url we are on. https://www.instagram.com/some_username/followers/

2.Now I have created a function to hold the code for opening the popup. This will be very useful so trap the necessary code into a function. (I don't have the classnames or xpath's on me so please customize the function for yourself)

    def openPopup():
        self.browser.get(f"https://www.instagram.com/{self.username}")
        global popup # we will need to access this variable outside of the function
        popup = driver.find_element_by_class_name('popupClass') #you don't have to use class_name
        popup.click()

3. Now we have to tell our while loop to not scan when Selenium accidentally clicks on a user. We will use our URL from step 1. Please make sure the following if-statement is inserted at the TOP of your loop so if there is a break, it will handle it first before trying to access the popup.

    while True:  
      check_url = self.browser.current_url #returns string with current_url

      if check_url != 'https://www.instagram.com/some_username/followers/':
        #if this code is executed, this means there has been an accidental click
        openPopup() #this will bring back to the page and reopen popup
    
     #the rest of your code
      popup.click() # variable from our function
      action.key_down(Keys.SPACE).key_up(Keys.SPACE).perform()
      time.sleep(3)
      newCount=len(dialog.find_elements_by_tag_name("li"))           
      if followerCount!=newCount or newCount==24:
        print(f"New count:{newCount}")
        time.sleep(3)
        followerCount=newCount
      else:
        break
      check_url = self.browser.current_url #we must recheck the current_url every time the loop runs to see if there has been a misclick

Now, whenever your loop detects the URL is no longer one of the popup, it will automatically call openPopup() which will get you back to the page and back in the popup, and your loop will continue as if nothing happened.

Answered By - Rohan Shah