Trouble selecting options from dropdown menus in Puppeteer

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

Hey everyone, I’m new to Puppeteer and I’m stuck on something. I’m trying to pick values from dropdown menus, but nothing I’ve tried is working. I’ve looked everywhere for answers.

I’ve tried focusing on the dropdown element and then selecting a value, but no luck. I’ve searched online and tried different methods, but I keep hitting a wall. It’s the last thing I need to finish my project and it’s really frustrating me.

Here’s what my code looks like so far:

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

async function runBrowser() {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless: false});
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('my-website-url');
  // This is where I want to select from the dropdown
}

runBrowser();

Has anyone dealt with this before? Any tips or tricks would be super helpful. Thanks!

2

hey mate, have u tried using page.evaluate() to trigger the dropdown? sometimes it works better than other methods. here’s a quick example:

await page.evaluate(() => {
  document.querySelector('#dropdownId').value = 'optionValue';
  document.querySelector('#dropdownId').dispatchEvent(new Event('change'));
});

hope this helps! lemme know if u need more info

3

I’ve faced similar issues with dropdowns in Puppeteer before. What worked for me was using the page.select() method. Here’s a snippet that might help:

await page.select('select#dropdownId', 'optionValue');

Replace ‘select#dropdownId’ with the actual selector for your dropdown and ‘optionValue’ with the value you want to select.

If that doesn’t work, another approach is to trigger the dropdown to open and then click the desired option:

await page.click('select#dropdownId');
await page.click('option[value="desiredValue"]');

Make sure you’re waiting for the element to be loaded before interacting with it. You can use page.waitForSelector() for this.

If you’re still having trouble, it might be worth checking if the dropdown is inside an iframe or if it’s dynamically loaded. Let me know if you need more help!

4

I’ve encountered similar challenges with dropdowns in Puppeteer. One effective approach I’ve found is using page.evaluate() to directly manipulate the dropdown’s value. Here’s an example:

await page.evaluate((selectId, value) => {
  document.querySelector(selectId).value = value;
  document.querySelector(selectId).dispatchEvent(new Event('change'));
}, '#dropdownId', 'desiredValue');

This method bypasses any potential issues with click events or visibility. It sets the value directly and triggers a change event to ensure the page recognizes the selection.

Remember to replace ‘#dropdownId’ with your actual selector and ‘desiredValue’ with the option you want to select. If you’re still facing issues, it might be worth checking if the dropdown is within a shadow DOM or if there are any network requests triggered by the selection that you need to wait for.