Selenium Webdriver: window determined as alert (HTTP Basic Access Authentication), how to login (Python)

Question

Sript click a link like <a href="/loginform.do"> and it's open a new pop up window with login/password fields (OK/Cancel buttons). And webdriver for some reason determine this pop up as alert not window...

if try for handle in browser.window_handles: print(handle)

it's return exception: UnexpectedAlertPresentException: Alert Text: Message: Modal dialog present

if try alert=browser.switch_to_alert() alert.send_keys('userlogin')

it's working (userlogin inserted into first field). And then if trying to move cursor to next field (password) by TAB key

alert.send_keys(Keys.TAB)

it's replace text at the first field to bullet symbol instead of tabbing to next field...

Not only TAB, even ENTER working in the same way

alert.send_keys(Keys.ENTER)

it's paste the same bullet symbol instead of sending request to a server

And

alert.accept()

doing nothing (no sending request to a server)

What can be done here?

It's an alert, so find_element_by_... methods are not applicable.
TAB by send_keys is not working (no tabbing).
Is the only solution to click by coordinates (using pyautogui module as an option)?
Or is it possible to do more with webdriver?

BTW using IE (IEDriverServer)

And some searching for close questions

31152912 close question, but answer is about find_element_by_name (no such attribute for 'Alert' object)
31152912, 29516740, 27322871 answers about using 'http://username:password@', unfortunatelly it's not working

So an example with login form of .htaccess password protection (advancedhtml.co.uk/password.html)

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

browser=webdriver.Ie('c:\\...\\IEDriverServer.exe')

page='http://www.advancedhtml.co.uk/password/'
browser.get(page)
alert=browser.switch_to_alert()
#alert=browser.switch_to.alert() # this should work, but it doesn't: TypeError: 'Alert' object is not callable
alert.send_keys('user')
alert.send_keys(Keys.TAB) # no tabbing, bullet symbol instead...
#alert.send_keys('password')

I'm a little unsure on what you mean by "if try". Could you clarify that? Also, `switch_to_alert()` has been replaces by `switch_to.alert()`. I'm not sure about IE, but `driver.switch_to.alert().accept()` works for me in chromedriver. — Brydenr, Oct 31 '16 at 18:42
Thanks for reply, "if try" means if we try `for handle in browser.window_handles:` rigth after pop up appears and sencond time if we try `alert=browser.switch_to_alert()` rigth after pop up appears. Yeah, switch_to_alert() replaced by switch_to.alert(), but for IEDriverServer only switch_to_alert() works. An example added, please look at this. — Litvin, Nov 01 '16 at 17:43

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

So this kind of login page is HTTP Basic Access Authentication. And looks the best way to handle such authentication is to sent post request (Requests package)

Need to pass browser session from Selenium to Requests (29563335)

The code may look like this:

from selenium import webdriver
import requests

startURL='http://some_url'
browser=webdriver.Ie('c:\\path\\IEDriverServer.exe')
browser.get(startURL)

# an example of finding login link and get the url
loginLink=browser.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'Log In')]")
loginURL=loginLink.get_attribute('href')

# load cookies from Selenium to Requests (so we could authenticate in current session)
cookies=browser.get_cookies()
s=requests.Session()
for cookie in cookies:
 s.cookies.set(cookie['name'], cookie['value'])

# and send the post request
auth=('login', 'password')
r=s.post(url=loginURL, auth=auth)
browser.refresh() # refresh page to see the result

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 11 '16 at 17:56

And for .htaccess password protection (example: advancedhtml.co.uk/password.html) it may be handled with additional click at coordinates

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import pyautogui

page='http://www.advancedhtml.co.uk/password/'
browser=webdriver.Ie('c:\\path\\IEDriverServer.exe')
browser.get(page)

alert=browser.switch_to_alert()
alert.send_keys('demo')
#alert.send_keys(Keys.TAB) # tabbing is not working
pyautogui.moveTo(620, 550) # so move mouse cursor to second field
pyautogui.click()
pyautogui.typewrite('password')
alert.accept()

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 03 '18 at 10:41

@Litvin, Your approach is correct but you needed to know one more thing in this.

When you do:- obj = driver.switch_to.alert

You can send the keys in one more way as below, which I understood after walking through the Python selenium source code (here).

obj.send_keys(keysToSend="username\ue004password")

Here \ue004 is the value for TAB.

Selenium Webdriver: window determined as alert (HTTP Basic Access Authentication), how to login (Python)

3 Answers3