[FIXED] How to clear the searchbox when using selenium to scrape twitter with different keywords

Issue

I'm trying to scrape twitter depending on different keywords, I want the script to take the words one by one and clear the search box each time to use the next one, but I have a problem with that

===========================================

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from time import sleep
    
searchbox = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//input[@aria-label="Search query"]')
    
keywords = ['Dog','Cat','Fox']
    
for keyword in keywords:
        
        searchbox.clear()  
        
        searchbox.send_keys(keyword)
        
        searchbox.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
        
        sleep(10)
        
        driver.find_element_by_link_text('Latest').click()
        
        sleep(5)
    
        data = []
    
        tweet_ids = set()
        
        Keywoed=keyword
    
        last_position = driver.execute_script("return window.pageYOffset;")
    
        scrolling = True
    
        while scrolling:
            
            page_info = driver.find_elements_by_xpath('//article[@data-testid="tweet"]')
            
            for info in page_info:
                            
                tweet = get_tweet_data(info)
                
                if tweet:
                    
                    tweet_id = ','.join(map(str, tweet))
                    
                    if tweet_id not in tweet_ids:
                        
                        tweet_ids.add(tweet_id)
                        
                        data.append(tweet)
                    
                
            scroll_attempt = 0
            
            while True:
                
                # check scroll position
                
                driver.execute_script('window.scrollTo(0, document.body.scrollHeight);')
                
                sleep(5)
                
                curr_position = driver.execute_script("return window.pageYOffset;")
                
                if last_position == curr_position:
                    
                    scroll_attempt += 1
                    
                    if scroll_attempt >= 3:
                        
                        scrolling = False
                        
                        break
                        
                    else:
                        
                        sleep(5) # attempt another scroll
                        
                else:
                    
                    last_position = curr_position
                    break
             
def get_tweet_data(info):
        
        UserName = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//span').text
        try:
            handle = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//span[contains(text(), "@")]').text
        except NoSuchElementException:
            return
        
        try:
            date = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//time').get_attribute('datetime')
        except NoSuchElementException:
            return
        
        try:
            image_element = info.find_elements_by_css_selector('div[data-testid="tweetPhoto"]')
            images = []
            for image_div in image_element:
                href = image_div.find_element_by_tag_name("img").get_attribute("src")
                images.append(href)
        except NoSuchElementException:
            
            return
        try:
             comment = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[2]/div[2]/div[1]').text
               
        except NoSuchElementException:
            return
        
        
        retweet_cnt = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//div[@data-testid="retweet"]').text
        
        like_cnt = info.find_element_by_xpath('.//div[@data-testid="like"]').text
        
              
        tweet = (comment,UserName,handle,date,images,retweet_cnt, like_cnt)
       
        return tweet

=============================================================

using searchbox.clear() didn't help and it give me the error :

for keyword in keywords:

----> searchbox.clear()

     searchbox.send_keys(keyword)

      def clear(self):
          """Clears the text if it's a text entry element."""

---> self._execute(Command.CLEAR_ELEMENT)

      def get_property(self, name):

StaleElementReferenceException: Message: stale element reference: element is not attached to the page document (Session info: chrome=101.0.4951.54)

Solution

You are navigating away from the page - this makes the searchbox element "stale". This means you have navigated away from the page/the searchbox element was no longer visible for ANY period of time.

To solve this issue you must load the page with the searchbox element, rerun the code to find the searchbox element, and then run the code.

I would suggest doing something similar to:

keywords = ['Dog','Cat','Fox']

for keyword in keywords:

    driver.get("page_with_searchbox_element")

    searchbox = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//input[@aria-label="Search query"]')
    
    searchbox.clear()  
    
    searchbox.send_keys(keyword)

    # Continue the rest of the code here...

This will reload the page with each attempt and you should no longer get the stale element exception.

Answered By - Jeremy Savage