Web Scraping Python fails to load the url on button.click() - python-3.x

Question

The CSV file contains the names of the countries used. However, after Argentina, it fails to recover the url. And it returns a empty string.
country,country_url
Afghanistan,https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=AF&_k=tomib2
Algeria,https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=DZ&_k=dcc8ra
Andorra,https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=AD&_k=crspt2
Antigua and Barbuda,https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=AG&_k=l5x5he
Argentina,https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=AR&_k=962zxt
Australia,
Austria,
Bahrain,
Bangladesh,
The country.csv looks like this:
Afghanistan,Algeria,Andorra,Antigua and Barbuda,Argentina,Australia,Austria,Bahrain,Bangladesh,Belgium,Bermuda,Bosnia and Herzegovina,Brazil,
The code used is:
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options = options, executable_path = driver_path)
url = 'https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&_k=ggmrvm'
driver.get(url)
time.sleep(2)
# This function opens .csv file that we created at the first stage
# .csv file includes names of countries
with open('1Countries.csv', newline='') as f:
reader = csv.reader(f)
list_of_countries = list(reader)
list_of_countries = list_of_countries[0]
print(list_of_countries) # printing a list of countries
# Let's create Data Frame of the country & country_url
df = pd.DataFrame(columns=['country', 'country_url'])
# With this function we are generating urls for each country page
for country in list_of_countries[:92]:
try:
path = ('//span[contains(text(),' + '\"' + country + '\"' + ')]')
# "path" is used to filter each country on the website by
# iterating country names.
next_button = driver.find_element_by_xpath(path)
next_button.click()
# Using "button.click" we are get on the page of next country
time.sleep(2)
country_url = (driver.current_url)
# "country_url" is used to get the url of the current page
next_button.click()
except:
country_url = None
d = [{'country': country, 'country_url': country_url}]
df = df.append(d)
I've tried increasing the sleep time, not sure what is leading to this?

Answer 1

The challenge you face is that the country list is scrollalble:
A bit convenient that your code stops working when they're not displayed.
It's a relatively easy solution - You need to scroll it into view. I've made a quick test with your code to confirm it's working. I removed the CSV part, hard coded a country that's further down the list and I've the parts to make it scroll to view:
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
import time
def ScrollIntoView(element):
actions = ActionChains(driver)
actions.move_to_element(element).perform()
url = 'https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&_k=ggmrvm'
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get(url)
driver.implicitly_wait(10)
country = 'Bermuda'
path = ('//span[contains(text(),' + '\"' + country + '\"' + ')]')
next_button = driver.find_element_by_xpath(path)
ScrollIntoView(next_button) # added this
next_button.click()
time.sleep(2)
country_url = (driver.current_url)
print(country_url) # added this
next_button.click()
This is the output from the print:
https://openaq.org/#/locations?parameters=pm25&countries=BM&_k=7sp499
You happy to merge that into your solution? (just say if you need more support)
If it helps a reason you didn't notice for yourself is that try was masking a NotInteractableException. Have a look at how to handle errors here
try statements are great and useful - but it's also good to track when the occur so you can fix them later. Borrowing some code from that link, you can try something like this in your catch:
except:
print("Unexpected error:", sys.exc_info()[0])