How to address "OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriverException: target frame detached" using Selenium through C#

Question

Since chrome updated to version 80 I started getting:

OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriverException: target frame detached

error from the chrome webdriver, when trying to switch frames.

Even driver.switchTo().defaultContent(); doesn't work. It throws a timeout.

Is there any way to avoid or recover from this exception?

Answer 1

This error message...

WebDriverException: target frame detached

...implies that a resultant HttpServerResponseInfo was net::HTTP_NOT_FOUND.

---

Details

As per the discussion Some error codes are not standard compliant there are some Chrome-specific error codes which still exists and most clients will treat them as unknown error. These error codes are:

• target frame detached
• chrome not reachable
• disconnected
• forbidden
• no such execution context
• tab crashed

This issue was addressed through the bug / commit and the current status is ToBeReleased.

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Deep Dive

The error target frame detached is defined in case kTargetDetached where case kTargetDetached is defined in http_handler.cc and occurs when the HttpServerResponseInfo contains HTTP_NOT_FOUND as follows:

void HttpHandler::HandleCommand(
    const net::HttpServerRequestInfo& request,
    const std::string& trimmed_path,
    const HttpResponseSenderFunc& send_response_func) {
  base::DictionaryValue params;
  std::string session_id;
  CommandMap::const_iterator iter = command_map_->begin();
  while (true) {
    if (iter == command_map_->end()) {
      if (w3cMode(session_id, session_thread_map_)) {
    PrepareResponse(
        trimmed_path, send_response_func,
        Status(kUnknownCommand, "unknown command: " + trimmed_path),
        nullptr, session_id, true);
      } else {
    std::unique_ptr<net::HttpServerResponseInfo> response(
        new net::HttpServerResponseInfo(net::HTTP_NOT_FOUND));
    response->SetBody("unknown command: " + trimmed_path, "text/plain");
    send_response_func.Run(std::move(response));
      }
      return;
    }
    if (internal::MatchesCommand(
        request.method, trimmed_path, *iter, &session_id, &params)) {
      break;
    }
    ++iter;
  }

and most possibly the reason in your case is kTargetDetached:

case kTargetDetached:
  response.reset(new net::HttpServerResponseInfo(net::HTTP_NOT_FOUND));
  break;

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Solution

To switch Selenium's focus within an <iframe> you have to induce WebDriverWait for the desired frame to be available and switch to it as follows:

• Using CssSelector:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20)).Until(ExpectedConditions.FrameToBeAvailableAndSwitchToIt(By.CssSelector("iframe#twitter-widget-0")));
  

• Using XPath:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20)).Until(ExpectedConditions.FrameToBeAvailableAndSwitchToIt(By.XPath("//fieldset[@id='twitter-widget-0']")));
  

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Reference

You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:

• How to wait for a frame to load before locating an element?
• How to locate and click on an element which is nested within multiple frame and frameset through Selenium using Webdriver and C#

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Outro

Ways to deal with #document under iframe

Answer 2

I also faced the same issue. Try to update the chromedriver version 80.0.3987.16 with selenium. Switching to iFrame should work fine. It works for me.