I need to perform some actions in an Windows Edge browser (Win11 Pro 64bit & Edge both latest versions) from Excel VBA.
SeleniumVBA seems a simple and perfect solution for my problem and IF things work, I'm done in a few lines of code.
These are the first few lines of my code:
Code:
Sub SeleniumEdgeExample() Dim driver As New WebDriver
driver.StartEdge
The very first time I run this it works, the next times I get a run-time error "Access Denied" on the "driver.StartEdge" line.
The error survives a reboot.
I found that when I delete the file "msedgedriver.exe" in my download folder, the first time I run this the error is gone but the next times it's back again (and the "msedgedriver.exe" is downloaded again in my Download folder.
This way I can't even get started.
Note that I did set a reference to the Selenium DLL correctly ("SeleniumVBA_win64.dll")
Hmm, I just helped a person on Reddit with Selenium, I'd never used it before then. We used the ChromeDriver instead of Edge (is that a must for you?) I doubt that would change the operation of the code. Anyway, the code basically just does:
Code:
Dim cDriver As chromeDriver
Set cDriver = New chromeDriver
cDriver.Get "YOUR URL HERE"
cDriver.Wait 2000 ' this waits 2 seconds
' from here on you can interact with the loaded page like
cDriver.FindElementById("butAgree").Click ' click the Ok button
' code to loop a table
Dim tblRow As WebElement
Dim tblData As WebElement
For Each tblRow In cDriver.FindElementById("ctl00_cph1_dtlDateList").FindElementsByTag("tr")
For Each tblData In tblRow.FindElementsByTag("td")
' do some stuff with the table data
Next tblData
Next tblRow
' all done
cDriver.Close
Set cDriver = Nothing
edit: copy/paste tblData and not Next tblData and a typo
I don't use chrome and if I change "driver.StartEdge" into "driver.StartChrome" Excel crashes.
In 'your' code, I get "User-defined type not defined" on line "Dim cDriver As chromeDriver". I think that's no longer the right call in the latest version??
Thanks, as indicated in my first post, I do have the refence in place (and the fact that it runs the very first time proves that).
I don't have Chrome so Edge should work (but it doesn't...), the driver is downloaded
Okay, this is what I did. Using the Selenium install I referenced above, then followed the instructions here (the marked answer of where to place the edgedriver.exe.
It works exactly as the chrome driver
Code:
Private Sub btnEdgeBrowser_Click()
Dim eDriver As EdgeDriver
Dim tblRow As WebElement
Dim tblData As WebElement
Dim rfqDateURLs As Scripting.Dictionary
Dim rw As Integer
Set eDriver = New EdgeDriver
eDriver.Get "https://www.dibbs.bsm.dla.mil/RFQ/RfqDates.aspx?category=close"
eDriver.Wait 2000
eDriver.FindElementById("butAgree").Click ' try to click the Ok button
eDriver.Wait 2000
Set rfqDateURLs = New Scripting.Dictionary
' get the table rows, loop through them to retrieve the data
rw = 5
For Each tblRow In eDriver.FindElementById("ctl00_cph1_dtlDateList").FindElementsByTag("tr")
' get each row of data from the web page table
For Each tblData In tblRow.FindElementsByTag("td")
' if the date is equal to or great than the date
' specified on sheet2 add it to the dictionary for processing
If Trim(tblData.Text) <> "" Then
' there is a date in the table cell
pagedate = CDate(tblData.Text)
' 10-1-24 add toDate for a possible date range
If pagedate >= Date Then
Sheet1.Cells(rw, 1).Value = pagedate
rw = rw + 1
DoEvents
rfqDateURLs.Add Format(pagedate, "MM-DD-YYYY"), tblData.FindElementByTag("a").Attribute("href")
End If
End If
Next tblData
Next tblRow
eDriver.Close
Set eDriver = Nothing
End Sub
edit: I forgot to include the link to the post about using Edge with selenium
It seems to me that there are two different versions for Selenium out there:
1 the one I used (and the one that 'belongs' to the Wiki pages I shared in my last link. This version is from 2024 and uses "SeleniumVBA_win64.dll" from july 2024
2 the one you point to which is from 2016 (!), I don't see a 64bit DLL there but there is a "Selenium64.tlb" file
As these tow versions appear so very much different, I'll fully uninstall the 'latest' version (my #1 above) and then re-install the 2016 version (#2)
Update: I performed the steps in the last post and now things seems to work OK. Thanks for the patience and help. Very weird that an actively kept much newer version fails, but I guess it's the end result that counts ;-)
Yes indeed, the wrapper 2.0.9 works quite well and is much easier to use. This helps now and when revisiting the code later because it is a much simpler code base.
If I may 'switch' the topic a bit (still "SeleniumVBA")... As said, I can now run Selenium. My first step was to 'auto-login' and I could indeed programmatically provide my credentials.
My end-goal is to select an option from a dropdown menu on the page and then click a button to download a file. After that I can close the browser.
I was working with elementIDs to provide login information, the drop-down menu however doesn't seem to show an ID. I'm not an expert here in any way, but could this be because this dropdown is done in Jva script or something similar? I tested if I could use keyboard shortcuts but the only thing that works is moving the mouse over the dropdown menu (and only then, without click, it opens).
So how do I use Selenium to deal with this problem?
if you know which <li> has the item you want then you can look select the div it is in and then loop the li
Using the last example, it would look something like this
Code:
Dim listItem as WebElement
Dim listItemCount as Integer
listItemCount = 1
For Each listItem In eDriver.FindElementById("divid").FindElementsByTag("li")
If listItemCount = 5 then
listItem.Click
End If
Next listItem
Ok, the script is more complex so I'll get to this again. But while I was testing with your code, I found that I can jump to the final page (where all I need to do is start the download) by going to a special URL. That URL only works after the login completed however.
So my question now is; after I started a session with a URL and logged-in (which now works), how do I switch to another URL in that same session?
Because if I do: "Driver.Start "edge", "special URL" it doesn't work as a NEW window opens and requires me to log in.
Thanks.
For clarity, you tip worked from a coding perspective. However the window where I was logged in was replaced by a window with the special URL and somehow that triggered again the logon prompt.
Can I open the special URL in a new tab instead?
Are you setting the eDriver object to nothing and then using the .Get method to go to the next URL? You don't need to do that (from what I've done anyway).
If you manually login and then copy and paste the URL you're trying to use in your code, does the browser open a new tab?
Thanks. No, I'm not resetting the driver between calls.
Not sue what you mean with your last suggestion, but if I manually login (so in a 'normal' browser window, not the 'special' one opened by Selenium) and then manually open a new tab and past the special URL there, it works.
Okay, every time you reset the driver it is like opening a new browser window.
What I have done is initiate the driver, then I pass that long the way to whatever code needs to use the browser and then close it when the entire process is finished.
In the project I just helped another person out with. You've seen the first step, where it goes and gets the available dates, once it does that it then clicks each date, but I pass in the driver object to the sub routine that reads the page your get what the date is clicked.
The attached zip has the complete xlsm file, you can look at it. It isn't the greatest.
The pseudo code would look like, to get the gist of it
button click:
set eDriver = New EdgeDriver
set dateDictionary = GetDates(eDriver)
For each dicItem in dateDictionary
ClickDate dictItem.Url, eDriver
Next
eDriver.Close
Set eDriver = Nothing
End button click
Function GetDates(eDriver as EdgeDriver) as Dictionary
find the date grid
loop the date grid, add dates that fit range to dictionary
return dictionary
sub ClickDates(dateUrl, eDriver)
eDriver.Get dateUrl
loop datePage Grid - fill desired data from each row into array
if datePage has pagination table then
call recursiveDatePage eDriver
return
Thanks again. I'll take a good look at your code later, but to avoid confusion here's my code. I hope that makes things more clear (I substituted certain fields with <info> obviously).
Code:
Sub MyCode()
Dim Driver As New WebDriver
Dim UserName As WebElement, PW As WebElement, LoginButton As WebElement
'
Driver.Start "edge", "<main URL>"
Driver.get "/"
Driver.Wait 1000
'
'Fill username field
Set UserName = Driver.FindElementById("USERNAME")
UserName.SendKeys "<myusername>"
Driver.Wait 1000
'
'Fill PW field
Set PW = Driver.FindElementById("PASSWORD")
PW.SendKeys "<mypassword>"
Driver.Wait 1000
'
'Find the login button by its ID
Set LoginButton = Driver.FindElementById("<loginbuttonID> ")
LoginButton.Click
Driver.Wait 1000
'
'Goto download page
Driver.get "<special URL>”
So the login works and then I want to jump to the special URL but once that instance opens, the login tab is replaced my the "special URL" and when that happens the login prompt comes back...
Oh okay. I miss read the "*not* resetting".
To my eye you are doing what you are supposed to (of course I'm not a Selenium expert by any means) do you know the mechanism the site uses to be aware that a user is logged in? Perhaps special consideration is required for different site authentication. Whether it uses JWT, Cookies, Session, Auth?
No, I have absolutely no clue how they do it. I think I'm back to continuing from my login (and forgetting about the 'special URL bypass').
I wanted to avoid that as that starts with a double 'mouse-hover' menu before I end up at the section where that 'special URL' brought me.
I'll look into it the coming days and I might share a screen-shot from the site code maybe.
I'm grateful for the help and patience :-) I thought this was easy: login, two actions and pressing a download button... But no
"Looks easy on paper" - the site probably blocks going directly to the URL and thus anyone not respecting the "proper path" to that URL is required to login (regardless of if they have already).
You're welcome, happy to help, even if only to bounce ideas around :-)
On the original posted problem... Sorry SeleniumVBA didn't work for you. It is newer and actively maintained, but hasn't been around that long. Until this post, I have not seen the issue that you reported. One of the advantages of SeleniumVBA is the auto alignment of browser and driver, but that seems to have gone wrong in your case.
Wondering if you can help us improve by trying the following VBA code? It determines the installed driver's version, which is where I think things went upside down for you - maybe a AV blocking issue?
Code:
Sub testGetDriverVersion()
Dim wsh As Object
Set wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'set the path to your installed driver, which I'm assuming is in SeleniumBasic install folder...
driverPath = Environ("LOCALAPPDATA") & "\SeleniumBasic\edgedriver.exe"
Debug.Print wsh.Exec(Chr$(34) & driverPath & Chr$(34) & " --version").StdOut.ReadAll
End Sub
Does that spit out the driver version? Or do you get "Access is Denied"? Thanks in advance!
Of course I can try that but I uninstalled this fork of Selenium and I'm not sure if re-installing would impact my other Selenium version (the one that IS working).
For the record: this wasn't an AV issue, I'm 99% sure and the version did update when I ran the software.
So it isn't that code fragment that is causing the problem - hmmm... Anyway FYI, SeleniumVBA is not a fork of SeleniumBasic. It is a complete rewrite in twinBASIC without dependencies (such as .Net framework).
Interestingly enough, since I implemented the code for my initial problem I ran it today again for the first time in a while.
And immediately I got an error.Attachment 193635
It seems that my driver no longer matches my Edge version.
I know there's a file called "edgedriver,exe" in AppData\Local\SeleniumBasic. So I thought to download the latest x64 Edge driver from MS, but that file is called "msedgedriver.exe"... Now I'm confused, did that change? Shoudld I simply rename that file then?
And yes, if I could try this with SeleniumVBA, that would be nicer (as I know that code automatically updates the driver). But alas... that failed immediately in my earlier attempts regretfully
When using SeleniumBasic, you will need to rename the WebDriver to "edgedriver.exe" each time you download. There are tools out there in Github to help automate that process.
FWIW, I suspect that if you tried to reinstall SeleniumVBA it would work. The SeleniumBasic install modifies the registry to make sure that Windows Script Host is enabled - my suspicion was that for some unknown reason it was not. If I'm correct about that, then it should be enabled now, and SeleniumVBA should work.
If you decide to try to get SeleniumVBA to work, keep in mind it is a different (but similar) object model. If you need help converting, you can post your working script here or send it to me by email (see my GCUser99 GitHub profile) and I can help make the conversion.
Last edited by GCUser99; Dec 4th, 2024 at 11:38 AM.
I would like that, certainly with the help you're offering .
But before I re-engage, can I install SeleniumVBA while the other Selenium instance is also installed? I mean, are you certain the new install will nog break my (mostly) working old install?
Installing SeleniumVBA should not interfere with SeleniumBasic - two different apps. But if you are worried that VBA will get confused, then you can just check on/off the references appropriately in VBA.
I downloaded again, didn't install yet but tried to run some test from the file 'SeleniumVBA.xlsm' (which, I understand, should be self-contained). The few routines I tried all immediately crashed my Excel... (for the record, I'm using Win11 Pro and run an up-to-date MSO365 (64 bit)
Huh - sounds like it might be a related problem. If you don't mind when using the SeleniumVBA.xlsm file, copy the SeleniumVBA.ini text file into same directory as SeleniumVBA.xlsm, and edit the .ini file by setting the entry auto_detect_and_update=False. That turns off the auto-Browser-WebDriver alignment feature. Then run any one of the test modules to see if that isolates the issue. Honestly, have yet to see this behavior in 2.5 years that SeleniumVBA has been around. I'm using Windows 11 with up-to-date MSO365 (64-bit). So it's a bit confounding!!
That might be the problem as now I get an error message Attachment 193637
I manually placed the file "msedgedriver.exe" the Download folder, but then if I test I see this Attachment 193638
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So it isn't that code fragment that is causing the problem - hmmm... Anyway FYI, SeleniumVBA is not a fork of SeleniumBasic. It is a complete rewrite in 
.