Actively wait for an element present and displayed up to specTimeoutMs ignoring useless webdriver errors like StaleElementError.

waitReady.js

/**
 * Actively wait for an element present and displayed up to specTimeoutMs
 * ignoring useless webdriver errors like StaleElementError.
 *
 * Usage:
 * Add `require('./waitReady.js');` in your onPrepare block or file.
 * 
 * @example
 * expect($('.some-html-class').waitReady()).toBeTruthy();
 */
"use strict";

// Config
var specTimeoutMs = 10000; // 10 seconds

/**
 * Current workaround until https://github.com/angular/protractor/issues/1102
 * @type {Function}
 */
var ElementFinder = $('').constructor;

ElementFinder.prototype.waitReady = function(opt_optStr) {
    var self = this;
    var driverWaitIterations = 0;
    var lastWebdriverError;
    function _throwError() {
        throw new Error("Expected '" + self.locator().toString() +
            "' to be present and visible. " +
            "After " + driverWaitIterations + " driverWaitIterations. " +
            "Last webdriver error: " + lastWebdriverError);
    };

    function _isPresentError(err) {
        lastWebdriverError = (err != null) ? err.toString() : err;
        return false;
    };

    return browser.driver.wait(function() {
        driverWaitIterations++;
        if (opt_optStr === 'withRefresh') {
            // Refresh page after more than some retries
            if (driverWaitIterations > 7) {
                _refreshPage();
            }
        }
        return self.isPresent().then(function(present) {
            if (present) {
                return self.isDisplayed().then(function(visible) {
                    lastWebdriverError = 'visible:' + visible;
                    return visible;
                }, _isPresentError);
            } else {
                lastWebdriverError = 'present:' + present;
                return false;
            }
        }, _isPresentError);
    }, specTimeoutMs).then(function(waitResult) {
        if (!waitResult) { _throwError() };
        return waitResult;
    }, function(err) {
        _isPresentError(err);
        _throwError();
        return false;
    });
};

// Helpers
function _refreshPage() {
    // Swallow useless refresh page webdriver errors
    browser.navigate().refresh().then(function(){}, function(e){});
};

this saved my day! thank you very much.

Very nice solution!

If needed, you can remove a lot of lines of code from spec files using waitReady.js by rewriting...

return waitResult;

with...

return self;

This way, you can do...

element.waitReady().then(function (elm) { ... })

Great. Solved my issue where an input filed did not load and caused NoSuchElement error (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31108455/protractor-sendkeys-returns-nosuchelementerror).

Is that solution really work for you ?
Have tried to use it to click on stale elements but sometimes exceptions occurs anyway.

have written is function like that:

function clickWait(element) {
    (element).waitReady().then(function () {
        return element.click();
    });
};

and invoking it like this :

    clickWait(usersPage.element);

where usersPage is my page object.

Hi, thanks for share this solution. I have a problem while trying to use it.

The error says:
ReferenceError: $ is not defined
for the line 20.

Can you help me with this?
Thanks in advance

Really nice solution.

Solved my problem which i m facing in protractor test with AngularJS + RequireJS setup.

Thank you so much...

Nice man. Helped me a lot.

This is awesome -- been using Protractor for awhile and have always relied on Expected Conditions to wait for things. For some reason today I was having an unusually hard time with one of my EC's throwing a stale element error, and I found this code after some googling. Works flawlessly for that same element I was having trouble with earlier. Thanks again!

This is great!

Also, looks like angular/protractor#1102 is resolved after this PR angular/protractor#1633.

This looks awesome, exactly what i looked for, but i have a problem - element(by.id('login_field')) is a protractor function which can not be used on non angular pages. $('#login_field') is giving undefined. How to waitReady for a element on non angular Page ?