How to handle colon (:) in the name when using Selenium in Python

The name attribute of the <input> element contains the : character as in:

vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit

And : bears a special effect when used within a css-selectors. Hence your program fails to find the desired element and raises NoSuchElementException

Solution

To find the element you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using css_selector:

  driver.find_element_by_css_selector("input[name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']")

• Using xpath:

  driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']")

Best practices

As you are invoking send_keys() ideally you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']"))).send_keys("860003020")

• Using XPATH:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//input[@name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']"))).send_keys("860003020")

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWaitfrom selenium.webdriver.common.by import Byfrom selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

• Browser Snapshot:

Reference

You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:

• Selenium “selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException” when using Chrome
• selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element while trying to click Next button with selenium