Cannot Activate/SwitchTo "ActiveWindow"

[GHRyunosuke]

Here is how to reproduce this issue:

1. Use driver.NavigateTo strURL to go to some website --> I suppose the tab that is now showing the web content is the "ActiveWindow"
2. Open a new tab manually, so you now switch to another tab.
3. Say you want to switch back/activate the original tab (i.e. the "ActiveWindow" above). I tried the following 2 pieces of code, and none of those works: driver.ActiveWindow.SwitchTo or driver.ActiveWindow.Activate (both could be executed, but nothing happens...)
4. The only code that works is driver.Windows.SwitchToByUrl driver.ActiveWindow.Url which is a little awkward to switch to the already-known active window.

driver.ActiveWindow.SwitchTo or driver.ActiveWindow.Activate seems to be more straightforward?

[GCuser99]

Hi @GHRyunosuke,

Yeah, the Selenium WebDriver does not recognize a tab that is created manually as the active window (although it still aware of the newly created window) - I would call it a limitation as opposed to a bug. So the first (non-manually created) window is still the active window as far as the WebDriver is concerned. An alternative to using driver.Windows.SwitchToByUrl and driver.ActiveWindow.Url is the following:

Dim driver As WebDriver
Dim oldWindow As WebWindow

Set driver = New WebDriver

driver.StartChrome
driver.OpenBrowser

driver.NavigateTo "http://the-internet.herokuapp.com/windows"

Set oldWindow = driver.ActiveWindow

Stop 'create a new tab manually

driver.Windows.SwitchToNext 'make the new window the active one
oldWindow.SwitchTo 'now switch back to the old one

'also following will work too if you only have two open windows
'driver.Windows.SwitchToNext 'make the new window the active one
'driver.Windows.SwitchToNext 'now switch back to the old one

driver.Wait 3000

driver.Shutdown

[GHRyunosuke]

Interesting... thank you & got it.
This alternative is better than "SwitchToByUrl" and "ActiveWindow.Url", will use this instead.