Failed: sendKeysToActiveElement error while invoking sendKeys to ENTER and other keystrokes using ChromeDriver Chrome with Protractor

This error message...

Failed: sendKeysToActiveElement 

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to invoke sendKeys() to the ActiveElement.

This issue started to surface when ChromeDriver / Chrome switched over to W3C support.

@AutomatedTester in the discussion UnsupportedOperationError: sendKeysToActiveElement with sendkeys mentions, this may be an issue within the Actions class within the Client bindings.

There should be a little shim in the bindings that make sure the same functionality is given on older commands that have been removed. This has been implemented in the core selenium binding.

• The Python example:

  def send_keys(self, *keys_to_send):"""Sends keys to current focused element.:Args: - keys_to_send: The keys to send.  Modifier keys constants can be found in the   'Keys' class."""typing = keys_to_typing(keys_to_send)if self._driver.w3c:    for key in typing:    self.key_down(key)    self.key_up(key)else:    self._actions.append(lambda: self._driver.execute(    Command.SEND_KEYS_TO_ACTIVE_ELEMENT, {'value': typing}))return selfdef send_keys_to_element(self, element, *keys_to_send):"""Sends keys to an element.:Args: - element: The element to send keys. - keys_to_send: The keys to send.  Modifier keys constants can be found in the   'Keys' class."""self.click(element)self.send_keys(*keys_to_send)return self

Solution

@barancev have already merged the required changes through the commit Renaming back 'py' directory, use of 'legacy_create_init' argument and this issue would get completely resolved with the next release of ChromeDriver v77.0 / Chrome v77.0.

The good news is ChromeDriver v77.0 is already released containing the following fixes. From the Release Notes of ChromeDriver v77.0:

• Resolved issue 2975: Webdriver Actions for keys (CONTROL, SHIFT etc..) not working in ChromeDriver 75.0.3770.8 [Pri-2]
• Resolved issue 2981: Chromedriver in W3C mode loses mouse state between Actions API calls [Pri-2]

Outro

Protractor.Key.Enter is not working in ChromeDriver v75.0.3770.8

Upgraded to chromeDriver 77 and still running into the same issue as mentioned above.await elem.sendKeys(protractor.Key.TAB); also tried: await browser.actions().sendKeys(protractor.Key.TAB).perform();

`- Failed: sendKeysToActiveElement  Build info: version: '3.141.59', revision: 'e82be7d358', time: '2018-11-14T08:25:53'  System info: host: 'GC02XYZ...', ip: 'fe80:xyz...', os.name: 'Mac OS X', os.arch: 'x86_64', os.version: '10.13.6', java.version: '11.0.1'  Driver info: driver.version: unknown``chromeDriver -vChromeDriver 77.0.3865.40`

When using chrome 74+ please add the below at configuration.js file

exports.config = {    seleniumAddress : 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub',    specs: ['spec.js'],    capabilities:{        'browserName': 'chrome',        'goog:chromeOptions': {            w3c: false        }    }};

Notes:refer the this linkhttps://github.com/angular/protractor/issues/5274#issuecomment-522258213