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'Click link on webpage failed' - Can click UI Elements in Selenium not in Desktop Flow

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Posted on by Freeman Tharp

I am working with a Desktop Flow that interacts with a webpage and am running into issues clicking on certain elements with the page. When I use the Web Recorder, I cannot click on any of the UI elements. After trying that, I added a 'Click Link on Webpage' and Add UI Element, I am able to select the elements within the page, however, when I run the flow, I get a 'Click Link on Webpage Failed' message. If I recreate the steps in Selenium, I can identify the UI Elements and the clicks work.

I am including a screenshot from Selenium of the command, one from the Selector Builder, and one from View Source in hopes that someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

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Power Automate Desktop

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WillPage 2,339 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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I came on here to post exactly this! I have been struggling with PA desktop for a few hours trying to get data from a SaaS product that's behind a login. I can get as far as navigating to the page I want, but the page has some things I need to click on before I scrape the data.

Just like you I can't record the clicks in the web recorder. When I add UI element they are shown as groups. e.g here I click a menu to change how many records to show on one page:

When I run the flow it fails with this:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.: Robin.Core.ActionException: Click link on web page failed. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Robin.Modules.WebAutomation.Actions.WebAutomationRuntime.ClickLinkOnWebPage(WebBrowserInstanceVariant webBrowserInstanceVariant, TextVariant cssSelectorForLinkElement, Boolean waitForPageToLoad, TextVariant dialogButtonToPress, WebPageCourseOfActionIfDialogAppearsEnum courseOfActionIfDialogAppears) at Robin.Modules.WebAutomation.Actions.WebAutomationActions.ClickLinkOnWebPage(Variant webBrowserInstance, Variant cssSelectorOfElementToClick, Variant dialogButtonToPress, Boolean waitForPageToLoad, Int32 courseOfActionIfDialogAppears) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Robin.Modules.WebAutomation.Actions.ClickBase.Execute(ActionContext context) at Robin.Runtime.Engine.ActionRunner.RunAction(String action, Dictionary`2 inputArguments, Dictionary`2 outputArguments, IActionStatement statement)

I've googled a bit - there's very little in the way of discussion about it, but I found this thread: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Desktop/Web-recorder-button-shift/td-p/751414

Not sure if it's relevant, but maybe we can solve this by messing with the UI element manually in PA desktop after capturing it. I'm not a front-end developer and have no understanding of how all this stuff works but I'm sure there are people out there that do.
takolota1 4,980 Moderator on at

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I've been having trouble pressing several submit or pop-up buttons on a website, but I've found a couple work-arounds that may really help anyone with this.

1st, I suspect that sometimes the element with the red box in the recording isn't the element that actually selects and runs the submit. I think it may be just selecting the text of the button or something. To get around this, I use the "Add a new UI element" option found on most actions. Then on the screen where I'm trying to select the correct submit element, I can select an element a little above the button I actually want to press. Then I use the tab button to select the next page element without using the mouse. Sometimes having the tab over the submit button I want helps me select the right element and sometimes I can kind of distract the red box selection on a different element away from the mouse so I can actually cntrl + click the element on the submit button that the red box doesn't normally pick up.

2nd, although I was able to get the correct element into PA Desktop through the 1st work-around, it won't let me use a Click link on webpage action with that element. So instead I have to use the Click UI element in window action. However, this can also run into the failed to get window error. So I added a Click link on webpage with the element normally picked up by the red box selection and I added a delay of a couple seconds. This allowed my web automation flow to use the Click UI element in window action on the correct submit button element.

And now I can finally press the button I need to and automatically submit my data!
kiwicdk 4 on at

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For the "Click link on web page" try opening the Advanced section and enable the "Send physical click:" option.
RyanCPerry 32 on at

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Thanks @kiwicdk.

I found the exact oposite - disabling the send a physical link button fixed, and just did a writeup on it. But, I am not clear exactly what is causing the issue - only that in my case, disabling it fixed the issue. Since you ran into this, have you found any more specifics as to why PAD 'click a link on web page' doesn't always work?

My findings are here: https://helpfulbit.com/power-automate-desktop-click-a-link-on-a-web-page-does-not-work/