AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_id'

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# AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_id'

The Selenium "AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_id'" occurs because the find_element_by_id method has been deprecated and removed starting Selenium 4.3.0.

Use the find_element method instead or downgrade your selenium version to 4.2.0.

attributeerror webdriver object has no attribute find element by id

As the changelog of Selenium states:

Deprecated find_element_by_* and find_elements_by_* are now removed
Deprecated Opera support has been removed

The find_element_by_* methods have been replaced by find_element and the find_elements_by_* methods have been replaced by find_elements.

Here is an example of how to use the find_element method instead of find_element_by_id.

main.py

Copied!
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.python.org/")


time.sleep(2)


# 👇️ using find_element method 👇️
search_field = driver.find_element(By.ID, 'id-search-field')

search_field.send_keys('for loop')

search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

We use the By class to specify which attribute is used to locate elements on the page.

The find_element_by_* methods have now become:

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")

Here are some examples from the Selenium docs.

main.py

Copied!
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# ✅ Locate a single element (New API)

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")
find_element(By.XPATH, "xpath")
find_element(By.LINK_TEXT, "link text")
find_element(By.PARTIAL_LINK_TEXT, "partial link text")
find_element(By.TAG_NAME, "tag name")
find_element(By.CLASS_NAME, "class name")
find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "css selector")

# ✅ Locate multiple elements (New API)
find_elements(By.XPATH, '//button')

If you need to look at more examples of using the new Selenium API, check out this section of the docs.

If you aren't able to update your code, you can downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0 to use the old API.

# Downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0

To solve the error, downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, which is the last version that supports the find_element_by_id() method.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and run the following command.

main.py

Copied!
pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
pip3 install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ if you don't have pip in PATH environment variable
python -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
python3 -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ py alias (Windows)
py -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ For Jupyter Notebook
!pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

If you have a requirements.txt file, you can add the following line.

requirements.txt

Copied!
selenium==4.2.0

You can use the pip show selenium command to check which version of the package is installed.

shell

Copied!
pip show selenium
pip3 show selenium

python -m pip show selenium
python3 -m pip show selenium

Once you downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, you will be able to use the deprecated find_element_by_id API.

main.py

Copied!
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.python.org/")


time.sleep(2)

# 👇️ using find_element_by_id (Selenium version < 4.3.0)
search_field = driver.find_element_by_id('id-search-field')

search_field.send_keys('for loop')

search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

Downgrading your Selenium version to 4.2 might not be a long-term solution, but it gets the job done if you aren't able to update your code right away.

# AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_name'

The Selenium "AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_name'" occurs because the find_element_by_name method has been deprecated and removed starting Selenium 4.3.0.

Use the find_element method instead or downgrade your selenium version to 4.2.0.

attributeerror webdriver object has no attribute find element by name

As the changelog of Selenium states:

Deprecated find_element_by_* and find_elements_by_* are now removed
Deprecated Opera support has been removed

The find_element_by_* methods have been replaced by find_element and the find_elements_by_* methods have been replaced by find_elements.

Here is an example of how to use the find_element method instead of find_element_by_name.

main.py

Copied!
import time

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.google.com")

time.sleep(4)

# 👇️ using find_element method 👇️
search_field = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'q')

search_field.send_keys('bobbyhadz.com')

search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

We use the By class to specify which attribute is used to locate elements on the page.

The find_element_by_* methods have now become:

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")

Here are some examples from the Selenium docs.

main.py

Copied!
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# ✅ Locate a single element (New API)

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")
find_element(By.XPATH, "xpath")
find_element(By.LINK_TEXT, "link text")
find_element(By.PARTIAL_LINK_TEXT, "partial link text")
find_element(By.TAG_NAME, "tag name")
find_element(By.CLASS_NAME, "class name")
find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "css selector")

# ✅ Locate multiple elements (New API)
find_elements(By.XPATH, '//button')

If you need to look at more examples of using the new Selenium API, check out this section of the docs.

If you aren't able to update your code, you can downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0 to use the old API.

# Downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0

To solve the error, downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, which is the last version that supports the find_element_by_name method.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and run the installation command with the --force-reinstall option.

main.py

Copied!
pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
pip3 install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ if you don't have pip in PATH environment variable
python -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
python3 -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ py alias (Windows)
py -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ For Jupyter Notebook
!pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

If you have a requirements.txt file, you can add the following line.

requirements.txt

Copied!
selenium==4.2.0

You can use the pip show selenium command to check which version of the package is installed.

shell

Copied!
pip show selenium
pip3 show selenium

python -m pip show selenium
python3 -m pip show selenium

Once you downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, you will be able to use the deprecated find_element_by_name API.

main.py

Copied!
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.google.com")


time.sleep(4)

# 👇️ using find_element_by_name (Selenium version < 4.3.0)
search_field = driver.find_element_by_name('q')


search_field.send_keys('bobbyhadz.com')

search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

Downgrading your Selenium version to 4.2 might not be a long-term solution, but it gets the job done if you aren't able to update your code right away.

# AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_xpath'

The Selenium "AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_xpath'" occurs because the find_element_by_xpath method has been deprecated and removed starting Selenium 4.3.0.

Use the find_element method instead or downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0.

attributeerror webdriver object has no attribute find element by xpath

As the changelog of Selenium states:

Deprecated find_element_by_* and find_elements_by_* are now removed
Deprecated Opera support has been removed

The find_element_by_* methods have been replaced by find_element and the find_elements_by_* methods have been replaced by find_elements.

Here is an example of how to use the find_element method instead of find_element_by_xpath.

main.py

Copied!
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.google.com")


time.sleep(3)


# 👇️ Using find_element() method 👇️
search_field = driver.find_element(
    By.XPATH,
    '/html/body/div[1]/div[3]/form/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/div/div[2]/input'
)


search_field.send_keys('bobbyhadz.com')
search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

We use the By class to specify which attribute is used to locate elements on the page.

The find_element_by_* methods have now become:

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")
find_element(By.XPATH, "xpath")

Here are some examples from the Selenium docs.

main.py

Copied!
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# ✅ Locate a single element (New API)

find_element(By.ID, "id")
find_element(By.NAME, "name")
find_element(By.XPATH, "xpath")
find_element(By.LINK_TEXT, "link text")
find_element(By.PARTIAL_LINK_TEXT, "partial link text")
find_element(By.TAG_NAME, "tag name")
find_element(By.CLASS_NAME, "class name")
find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "css selector")

# ✅ Locate multiple elements (New API)
find_elements(By.XPATH, '//button')

If you need to look at more examples of using the new Selenium API, check out this section of the docs.

If you aren't able to update your code, you can downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0 to use the old API.

# Downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0

To solve the error, downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, which is the last version that supports the find_element_by_xpath method.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and run the following command.

main.py

Copied!
pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
pip3 install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ If you don't have pip in PATH environment variable
python -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall
python3 -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ py alias (Windows)
py -m pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

# 👇️ For Jupyter Notebook
!pip install selenium==4.2.0 --force-reinstall

If you have a requirements.txt file, you can add the following line.

requirements.txt

Copied!
selenium==4.2.0

You can use the pip show selenium command to check which version of the package is installed.

shell

Copied!
pip show selenium
pip3 show selenium

python -m pip show selenium
python3 -m pip show selenium

Once you downgrade your Selenium version to 4.2.0, you will be able to use the deprecated find_element_by_xpath API.

main.py

Copied!
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager


driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.google.com")


time.sleep(3)

# 👇️ Using find_element_by_xpath (Selenium < 4.3.0) 👇️
search_field = driver.find_element_by_xpath(
    '/html/body/div[1]/div[3]/form/div[1]/div[1]/div[1]/div/div[2]/input'
)


search_field.send_keys('bobbyhadz.com')
search_field.submit()

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

Downgrading your Selenium version to 4.2 might not be a long-term solution, but it gets the job done if you aren't able to update your code right away.

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AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_id'

# Table of Contents