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VBA - scraping websites videos | How do I access elements in the Shadow DOM using Selenium in VBA?

Posted by Andrew Gould on 03 April 2021

How do I access elements in the Shadow DOM using Selenium in VBA?

Learn how to access elements in a Shadow DOM on a web page. You'll see how to use javascript to access the shadow root element and then search within the Shadow DOM using Selenium's FindElement methods.

See our full range of VBA training resources, or test your knowledge of VBA with one of our VBA skills assessment tests.

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This page has 4 threads

From:	Rocco
When:	05 May 22 at 09:43

Simply Brilliant!!!

Thanks a lot

From:	Andrew G
When:	06 May 22 at 08:01

Thanks Rocco!

Reply

Reply

From:	edthehorse
When:	25 Jan 22 at 22:30

RE Shadow DOM.

Brilliant video as usual.

This video of the shadow dom itself I found useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tok22qxPzQ

From:	Andrew G
When:	26 Jan 22 at 07:27

Thanks Ed!

Reply

Reply

From:	Richard63
When:	07 Dec 21 at 17:08

I use:

Chrome: Version 96.0.4664.93 (Offizieller Build) (32-Bit)

Driver: ChromeDriver_win32_96.0.4664.45.exe

The goal is to get out the actual path of the downloads directory for chrome

I can’t access the “#shadow-root” part.

If I understand it correct, I need loop to each of the 5 different “#shadow-root” levels

Regards, Richard

From:	Andrew G
When:	08 Dec 21 at 08:46

Hi Richard,

I believe that Chrome v96 has introduced a change which affects the ExecuteScript method in SeleniumBasic. I'm having similar issues with manipulating the print preview window.

I'm afraid that I don't know of a solution at the moment, sorry.

From:	Dhriman
When:	16 Feb 22 at 18:54

Hi Andrew,

Do you have any workaround for the Chrome 96 + issue while trying to locate elements inside Shadow root.

I am unable to find the solution to this problem anywhere online.

Thanks in advance..!!

From:	Andrew G
When:	17 Feb 22 at 08:18

Hi! Sorry no, I haven't found a solution to this yet. This thread indicates that the official Selenium release has solved this from v4.1. The VBA implementation of Selenium isn't officially supported so it may be that this will never be resolved. Annoying.

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From:	geophysguy
When:	22 Aug 21 at 23:19

Andrew,
I've watched all of the 57 series of videos several times and have learned a great deal and continue to come back to them when i get stuck, however finding this shadow host is stumping me and I haven't found an answer here or anywhere else on the net. So I thought I might go to the source and ask the guru himself.

Here's what i've tried stepping through(F8) the macro to ensure everything is loaded with Selenium Basic of a google chrome pdf with a shadow dom. I'm after a table that is in the chrome browser window that after my macro runs I have to Ctrl Copy and then run another macro to organize and format the table data as I need it. It's a secure website and the rest of the macro runs fine opening 5 tabs in the browser finding all of the elements I need but I'd like to automate this last repetetive task so I would not have to stop Ctrl C and V the data into excel and run another macro. The HTML is:

<body>
   <pdf-viewer id="viewer"></pdf-viewer> flex
       #shadow-root (open)
       <div id="container"> flex
       <div id="sidenav-container">
           <div id="main">
               <embed id="plugin" type="application/x-google-chrome-pdf" ...>   '<-After this

Dim ShadowHost As Selenium.WebElement
Dim ShadowRoot As Selenium.WebElement

With ch
Set ShadowHost = .FindElement(FindBy.XPath("/html/body/pdf-viewer"))
Set ShadowHost = .FindElement(FindBy.Css("#viewer"))
End With

Both the above tried seperatly give:

Run-Time error 7
NOSuchElementError
Element not found for XPath=/html/body/pdf-viewer
or Css=#viewer

'I tried this and didn't get an error:

   Set ShadowHost = .FindElementByXPath("/html/body/*")

'BUT the Locals window says ShadowHost tagname = "embed"
'which is the table I'm after!
'but using devtools find gives:
<pdf-viewer id="viewer"></pdf-viewer> flex == $0
Then I run the following:
   Set ShadowRoot = .ExecuteScript(Script:="retutn arguments[0].ShadowRoot", arguments:=ShadowHost"))
'and i get:

Run-time error '17':
JavaScriptError
javascript error: Unexpected identifier

'So I tried:
Set ShadowRoot = .ExecuteScript(Script:="retutn arguments[0].ShadowRoot", arguments:=.FindElementByXPath("/html/body/*")"))
'and got the same error 17

'The element has no other shadow-root above but I can't select anything but body.
'I've tried js ch.querySelector("#viewer")
'and a bunch more but can't get the ShadowHost selected.

'So i thought ok I'll just Ctrl A, Ctrl C, .getclipboard like this:
Set ShadowHost = .FindElementByTag("body").SendKeys(.keys.Control, "a")
Set ShadowHost = .FindElementByTag("body").SendKeys(.keys.Control, "c")
Set dataObj = New MSForms.DataObject
Debug.Print dataObj.GetFromClipboard
'Gives me Compile error mismatch

'So tried this:
.FindElementByXPath("/html/body/*").AsTable.ToExcel ShDstMLS_ReCOLORADO.Range("M13")

'and got:

Run-Time error "59":
UnexpectedTagNameError
Unrecognized tag name.
Expected=table.tbody
Got=embed
'which is what the local window says the tagname of the WebElement is.

So in conclusion, i have 4 questions:
Why the errors:
7?
17?
Compile error mismatch?
59?
ok 5 questions:
Any ideas as to what's going on and can you help a faithful but frustrated follower?

Thanks for any of the questions you might answer,
geophysguy

PS: There is very little on the net on Ctrl copy and paste, using Action or Actions class (do these 2 classes exist in Selenium Basic?)
or SendKeys for Selenium Basic for VBA, plenty with JS JavaScript C and Python but there's enough differences to make trying to answer
a question on one's own very frustrating. Would love to see a video with the Selenium Basic keyboard commands. Guess this counts as 6 questions.

Thanks again.

From:	Andrew G
When:	23 Aug 21 at 15:42

That's a lot of questions!

I believe that working with a PDF is significantly different to working with regular web pages. The pdf-viewer element doesn't appear to be exposed to the DOM (as you've discovered!).

It seems that there are two main ways to do this (neither of which I've attempted):

1) Write a javascript method in your VBA code to use a plugin to copy information from the PDF
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56648375/how-to-scrape-a-particular-text-from-pdf-using-selenium-with-vba

2) Download the PDF file and use the Acrobat VBA library to manipulate it
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28835164/copying-data-from-multiple-pdf-files
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-sdk/accessing-a-pdf-file-through-vba/m-p/9264497
https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/acrobatsdk/

Sorry I can't be any more help than that but I hope it points you in the right direction!

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