Extracting href links from initial table in Playwright headless browser: Troubleshooting 'Event loop closed' error

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I’m having trouble getting href links from the first table in a Playwright headless browser page. The error message isn’t very helpful. It just shows a bunch of ^ symbols beneath the table.

I switched to a headless browser because I was getting empty tables while scraping the site’s HTML. I’m not really familiar with its inner workings.

Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.firefox.launch()
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.navigate("https://example.com/stats")

    stats_table = page.locator("table.stats_data").first
    link_elements = stats_table.get_by_role("link").all()
    for element in link_elements:
        print(element.get_attribute("href"))

    team_links = [f"https://example.com{link}" for link in link_elements if "/teams/" in link]
    print(team_links)

browser.close()

However, I keep encountering this error:

playwright._impl._errors.Error: Event loop is closed! Is Playwright already stopped?

I’m not sure what is causing this error. Could it be related to the use of .first? Any ideas on how to resolve this so that I can successfully extract the href links?

2

hey sophia, i had similar issues. try moving browser.close() inside the ‘with’ block. also, use page.wait_for_selector() to ensure the table loads. heres a quick fix:

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.firefox.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto('https://example.com/stats')
    page.wait_for_selector('table.stats_data')
    # rest of your code here
    browser.close()

hope this helps!

3

I’ve run into similar issues with Playwright before, and it can be frustrating. The ‘Event loop closed’ error usually pops up when you’re trying to interact with the browser after it’s already been closed. In your case, it looks like the browser is closing before you’ve finished extracting the links.

A simple fix might be to move your browser.close() call inside the ‘with’ block. This ensures all operations are completed before the browser shuts down. Also, I’d suggest using page.query_selector_all() instead of the locator API for more reliable element selection in headless mode.

Here’s a tweaked version that might work better:

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.firefox.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto('https://example.com/stats')

    links = page.query_selector_all('table.stats_data a')
    team_links = ['https://example.com' + link.get_attribute('href') for link in links if '/teams/' in link.get_attribute('href')]
    print(team_links)

    browser.close()

This approach should avoid the event loop issue and give you the links you’re after. Let me know if you still run into problems!

4

I’ve encountered similar issues with Playwright. The ‘Event loop closed’ error typically occurs when you’re trying to interact with browser elements after the browser has been closed. Your code structure might be the culprit here.

Try restructuring your code to ensure all operations are completed before the browser closes. Move the browser.close() inside the ‘with’ block and use page.wait_for_selector() to ensure the table has loaded before attempting to extract links.

Here’s a modified version that might resolve your issue:

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.firefox.launch(headless=True)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto('https://example.com/stats')
    page.wait_for_selector('table.stats_data')

    stats_table = page.query_selector('table.stats_data')
    link_elements = stats_table.query_selector_all('a')
    team_links = ['https://example.com' + link.get_attribute('href') for link in link_elements if '/teams/' in link.get_attribute('href')]
    print(team_links)

    browser.close()

This approach should prevent the event loop error and successfully extract your links. Let me know if you need further assistance.