[FIXED] Selenium (Python) - waiting for a download process to complete using Chrome web driver

Issue

I'm using selenium and python via chromewebdriver (windows) in order to automate a task of downloading large amount of files from different pages. My code works, but the solution is far from ideal: the function below clicks on the website button that initiating a java script function that generating a PDF file and then downloading it.

I had to use a static wait in order to wait for the download to be completed (ugly) I cannot check the file system in order to verify when the download is completed since i'm using multi threading (downloading lot's of files from different pages at once) and also the the name of the files is generated dynamically in the website itself.

My code:

def file_download(num, drivervar):
Counter += 1
    try:
        drivervar.get(url[num])
        download_button = WebDriverWait(drivervar, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.ID, 'download button ID')))
        download_button.click()
        time.sleep(10) 
    except TimeoutException: # Retry once
        print('Timeout in thread number: ' + str(num) + ', retrying...')
..... 

Is it possible to determine download completion in webdriver? I want to avoid using time.sleep(x).

Thanks a lot.

Solution

You can get the status of each download by visiting chrome://downloads/ with the driver.

To wait for all the downloads to finish and to list all the paths:

def every_downloads_chrome(driver):
    if not driver.current_url.startswith("chrome://downloads"):
        driver.get("chrome://downloads/")
    return driver.execute_script("""
        var items = document.querySelector('downloads-manager')
            .shadowRoot.getElementById('downloadsList').items;
        if (items.every(e => e.state === "COMPLETE"))
            return items.map(e => e.fileUrl || e.file_url);
        """)


# waits for all the files to be completed and returns the paths
paths = WebDriverWait(driver, 120, 1).until(every_downloads_chrome)
print(paths)

Was updated to support changes till version 81.

Answered By - Florent B.