How to Fix Selenium Not Rendering HTML Page Source Issue

Discover how to effectively retrieve data from dynamic web pages with Selenium by handling iframes and wait conditions in Python.
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Solving the Selenium Page Source Rendering Issue

When you are parsing web pages with Selenium in Python, it's frustrating to encounter a situation where the HTML page source doesn't contain the data you see in the browser window. This issue often arises in dynamic web applications where data is loaded asynchronously, commonly inside iframes. In this guide, we'll walk through how to solve this problem and extract the data you need.

The Problem: Missing Data in Page Source

You may have experienced this issue when trying to retrieve specific text from a webpage, like so:

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Here, your expectation is to find the string 'RECUPERADOS' in the page source, but it returns False. This discrepancy occurs because the string is not currently part of the HTML source that Selenium captures — it is inside an iframe.

The Solution: Handling Iframes with Selenium

To successfully capture the desired data, you'll need to switch to the iframe and ensure the element has loaded before checking the page source. Here’s how you can do this:

Step 1: Import Required Libraries

Make sure to include the necessary Selenium libraries for handling elements and waits:

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Step 2: Navigate to the Web Page and Switch to the Iframe

After calling the get() method to load the webpage, you will need to wait for the iframe to be available and switch to it:

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Step 3: Wait for the Element to be Visible

Next, we will wait for the specific element containing 'RECUPERADOS' to become visible on the page:

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Step 4: Check for the String in Page Source

Now that we've switched to the iframe and ensured the element is visible, we can check our conditions:

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Step 5: Switching Back from the Iframe (if necessary)

If you need to return to the main document after interacting with components inside the iframe, use the following code:

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Conclusion

By using the right strategies, such as switching to iframes and implementing wait conditions, you can effectively retrieve data from dynamic web pages using Selenium. This approach not only improves your web scraping techniques but also enhances your understanding of how web applications work behind the scenes.

Next time you run into a similar issue where the expected data isn't available in the page source, remember to check if it's inside an iframe and apply these steps. Happy coding!

Видео How to Fix Selenium Not Rendering HTML Page Source Issue канала vlogize