element not interactable: [object SVGGElement] has no size and location error interacting with search field on YouTube homepage using Selenium Python

Question

Code trials:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver import Keys, ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from time import time
from selenium.webdriver.common.actions.action_builder import ActionBuilder
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC


service = Service(executable_path="C:\\Users\\aps\\Desktop\\Python\\chromedriver.exe")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service)
driver.get("https://youtube.com")


search = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, "search")))

ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(search).pause(2).click_and_hold().send_keys("Iktarfa").perform()
button = driver.find_element(By.ID, "search-icon-legacy").click()

Search field is getting fetched.

But after that I am getting following error, I am out of ideas and a new learner. Please HELP!!

Answer 1

The locator strategy which you have used:

(By.ID, "search")

identifies multiple elements within the HTML DOM.

and the first WebElement having the property style="display: none;". Hence you see the error.

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Solution

To send a character sequence to the element you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following locator strategies:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "ytd-searchbox#search"))).send_keys("text")
  

• Using XPATH:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//ytd-searchbox[@id='search']"))).send_keys("text")
  

• Note: You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC