WebDriver - wait for element using Java

You can use Explicit wait or Fluent Wait

Example of Explicit Wait -

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(WebDriverRefrence,20);
WebElement aboutMe;
aboutMe= wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("about_me")));     

Example of Fluent Wait -

Wait<WebDriver> wait = new FluentWait<WebDriver>(driver)                            
.withTimeout(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS)          
.pollingEvery(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS)          
.ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);    

  WebElement aboutMe= wait.until(new Function<WebDriver, WebElement>() {       
public WebElement apply(WebDriver driver) { 
return driver.findElement(By.id("about_me"));     
 }  
});  

Check this TUTORIAL for more details.

This is how I do it in my code.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(webDriver, timeoutInSeconds);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id<locator>));

or

wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id<locator>));

to be precise.

See also:

• org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions for similar shortcuts for various wait scenarios.
• org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait for its various constructors.

We're having a lot of race conditions with elementToBeClickable. See https://github.com/angular/protractor/issues/2313. Something along these lines worked reasonably well even if a little brute force

Awaitility.await()
        .atMost(timeout)
        .ignoreException(NoSuchElementException.class)
        .ignoreExceptionsMatching(
            Matchers.allOf(
                Matchers.instanceOf(WebDriverException.class),
                Matchers.hasProperty(
                    "message",
                    Matchers.containsString("is not clickable at point")
                )
            )
        ).until(
            () -> {
                this.driver.findElement(locator).click();
                return true;
            },
            Matchers.is(true)
        );