When should you use Thread.sleep() in Selenium?
Hi Tom,
Thread.sleep() in Selenium is used to introduce a pause in test execution. It should be used judiciously, typically for debugging purposes or when dealing with asynchronous behavior that requires waiting for an element to appear or disappear.
You can check out this article on how to use Thread.sleep() in Selenium:
With over a decade of experience in Selenium testing, I agree with Tom. Waiting for dynamic content is a common scenario. If your web application loads content dynamically and you need to wait for it to appear before performing further actions, you can use Thread.sleep() to introduce a delay to ensure the content is loaded.
However, it’s often better to use Selenium’s wait mechanisms. Learn Selenium Waits by following this blog: https://www.lambdatest.com/blog/selenium-waits/. These wait methods work better than using Thread.sleep().
Absolutely, and with my extensive background in QA automation, I must add that using Thread.sleep() should generally be avoided in favor of explicit waits like WebDriverWait. Explicit waits are more efficient and provide better control over the synchronization of your tests with the application state. They allow you to wait for specific conditions to be met before proceeding, which is more reliable than using a fixed, arbitrary pause like Thread.sleep().
For a more reliable synchronization of your tests, follow this detailed guide: https://www.lambdatest.com/blog/synchronization-in-selenium-webdriver/.