Finding nested elements in cdp mode + iframe #3848

alerodm · 2025-06-26T16:35:27Z

alerodm
Jun 26, 2025

Hey all

So I have the html below which is a simplification of my actual scenario. My goal is to iterate the li elements and extract the text and some attributes of the nested elements that it might have.

This is what I’m doing:

driver = SeleniumBaseDriver(browser="chrome", headless=False, uc=True, do_not_track=True)
driver.uc_activate_cdp_mode(“file://path/to/html”)
iframe = driver.cdp.find_element("iframe")
li_list = iframe.query_selector_all('li’)
print(list_list[0].query_selector(‘div’).text)  # fails

I couldn't find a switch_to_frame equivalent in cdp mode, so I took the path of nested element finding instead. This works fine for locating the li elements, but I can't find anything nested within them, like the div. In these cases query_selector always returns None, though I can get the text or html of the li element itself.

Should I be taking a different approach? Thanks!

I'm on Chrome 137 and selenium-base 4.39.3

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Selenium Test Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Main Page</h1>
    <p>This is the main page content.</p>
    
    <iframe id="test-iframe" name="testFrame" width="600" height="400" srcdoc="<!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
        <title>Iframe Content</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h2>Iframe Content</h2>
        <ul id='item-list'>
            <li id='item-1' class='list-item'>
                <div data-testid='content-1' data-value='alpha'>First item content</div>
            </li>
            <li id='item-2' class='list-item'>
                <div data-testid='content-2' data-value='beta'>Second item content</div>
            </li>
            <li id='item-3' class='list-item'>
                <div data-testid='content-3' data-value='gamma'>Third item content</div>
            </li>
            <li id='item-4' class='list-item'>
                <div data-testid='content-4' data-value='delta'>Fourth item content</div>
            </li>
            <li id='item-5' class='list-item'>
                <div data-testid='content-5' data-value='epsilon'>Fifth item content</div>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </body>
    </html>">
    </iframe>
    
    <p>Content after the iframe.</p>
</body>
</html>```

Answered by mdmintz

Jun 26, 2025

I would check out #3528 (comment).
If element.query_selector(selector) isn't working and sb.get_nested_element(parent_selector, selector) isn't working, then you may have to call sb.reconnect() in order to use the regular Selenium iframe methods such as switch_to_frame(frame).

For some cases where you need to retain stealth, there are workarounds, specifically for interacting with elements inside nested iframes. PyAutoGUI can be used for that. Example: #3533 (comment).

View full answer

mdmintz · 2025-06-26T17:09:25Z

mdmintz
Jun 26, 2025
Maintainer

I would check out #3528 (comment).
If element.query_selector(selector) isn't working and sb.get_nested_element(parent_selector, selector) isn't working, then you may have to call sb.reconnect() in order to use the regular Selenium iframe methods such as switch_to_frame(frame).

For some cases where you need to retain stealth, there are workarounds, specifically for interacting with elements inside nested iframes. PyAutoGUI can be used for that. Example: #3533 (comment).

2 replies

alerodm Jun 26, 2025
Author

Thanks Michael, the reconnection + switch_to_frame did the job. BTW, based on your experience, would you say moving back from the CDP mode to the regular UC mode would be a bad idea when dealing with AAA websites?

mdmintz Jun 26, 2025
Maintainer

It's probably all case-by-case, depending on the website. Sometimes UC Mode is good enough (eg. Google Search), and other times you need CDP Mode.

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