Python Selenium Element not found and Not Intractable - python-3.x

Question

I'm trying to scrape from the moneycontrol.com. When I tried to send value in the search box I keep getting the same error in except block as "Element not Found".
I tried using XPath id as well as using the full XPath but in both cases, it doesn't work.
WITHOUT MAXIMIZING THE WINDOW
XPath id - //*[#id="search_str"]
Full XPath - /html/body/div[1]/header/div[1]/div[1]/div/div/div[2]/div/div/form/input[5]
Attaching the full code below:
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
def search_stock():
driver = webdriver.Chrome(
r'./chromedriver')
driver.get('https://www.moneycontrol.com/')
time.sleep(5)
search_icon = driver.find_element_by_xpath(
'//*[#id="fixedheader"]/div[4]/span')
search_icon.click()
time.sleep(2)
try:
search_box = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[#id="search_str"]')
print("Element is visible? " + str(search_box.is_displayed()))
time.sleep(10)
if search_box.is_displayed():
search_box.send_keys('Zomato')
search_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
except NoSuchElementException:
print("Element not found")
driver.close()
search_stock()
Sometimes, it started working but most of the time it throwing exceptions and errors. Struggling since 3 days but none of the solutions working.

Answer 1

web scraping like that seems quite inefficient it is prob better to use requests and bs4. However if you want to do it like this you could try using action chains. found here Or you can do driver.get('https://www.moneycontrol.com/india/stockpricequote/consumer-food/zomato/Z') from the start instead of typing it in.

Answer 2

You may wanna try the below code :
def search_stock():
driver = webdriver.Chrome(r'./chromedriver')
driver.maximize_window()
driver.implicitly_wait(30)
driver.get('https://www.moneycontrol.com/')
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 10)
time.sleep(5)
try:
ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[id='search_str']")))).perform()
search_box = wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[id='search_str']")))
print("Element is visible? ", search_box.is_displayed())
time.sleep(10)
if search_box.is_displayed():
search_box.send_keys('Zomato')
search_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
except NoSuchElementException:
print("Element not found")
Imports :
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains

Answer 3

Try clicking on search_box and only after that sending text there.
search_box = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//form[#id="form_topsearch"]//input[#id="search_str"]')
search_box.click()
time.sleep(0.1)
search_box.send_keys('Zomato')
search_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
Additionally I would advise you using explicit waits of expected conditions instead of hardcoded sleeps.
With it your code will be faster and more reliable.
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
def search_stock():
driver = webdriver.Chrome(r'./chromedriver')
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 20)
driver.get('https://www.moneycontrol.com/')
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, '//*[#id="fixedheader"]/div[4]/span')).click()
search_box = wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, '//form[#id="form_topsearch"]//input[#id="search_str"]')))
search_box.send_keys('Zomato')
search_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
#I'm not sure you should close the driver immediately after involving searching....
#driver.close()
search_stock()
UPD
Let's try this
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
def search_stock():
driver = webdriver.Chrome(r'./chromedriver')
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 20)
actions = ActionChains(driver)
driver.get('https://www.moneycontrol.com/')
search_icon = wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, '//*[#id="fixedheader"]/div[4]/span')).click()
time.sleep(0.5)
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].scrollIntoView();", search_icon)
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", search_icon)
search_box = wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, '//form[#id="form_topsearch"]//input[#id="search_str"]')))
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].scrollIntoView();", search_icon)
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", search_icon)
time.sleep(0.5)
search_box.send_keys('Zomato')
search_box.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
#I'm not sure you should close the driver immediately after involving searching....
#driver.close()
search_stock()
If the above solution is still not working instead of
actions.move_to_element(search_box).click().perform()
try
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", search_box)