What causes "getting element's inner HTML: %w" in grafana/k6?

Re-acquire the element handle immediately before reading innerHTML

getting element's inner HTML

Error message

getting element's inner HTML: %w

What it means

ElementHandle.innerHTML() wraps the failure of a CDP evaluation that returns element.innerHTML by value. The read itself is cheap, so the wrapped error almost always means the evaluation could not run: the element handle is detached, the execution context was destroyed by navigation, the session closed, or the default timeout (30s) was exceeded.

Solutions

Re-acquire the element handle immediately before reading innerHTML
Wait for the page to be in a stable state: page.waitForLoadState() before reading
Guard with await el.evaluate(e => e.isConnected) if the handle's freshness is uncertain
Raise K6_BROWSER_TIMEOUT if the underlying cause is a stalled but recoverable session

Example fix

// before
const el = await page.$('#content');
await page.reload();
const html = await el.innerHTML(); // stale handle

// after
await page.reload();
const el = await page.$('#content');
const html = await el.innerHTML();

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// Read DOM state only from fresh, connected handles
const connected = await el.evaluate((e) => e.isConnected).catch(() => false);
if (!connected) throw new Error('stale handle; re-query before innerHTML()');
const html = await el.innerHTML();

Try / catch

try {
  const html = await el.innerHTML();
} catch (e) {
  if (/Could not find object|Execution context|timed out/i.test(String(e.message))) {
    const html = await page.locator(sel).innerHTML(); // live re-resolve
  } else throw e;
}

Prevention

Re-acquire handles after navigation or reload before asserting on DOM content
Prefer locators over cached element handles for read-only assertions
Finish DOM reads before triggering teardown (close/popups, navigation)

When it happens

Trigger: The page navigates between acquiring the handle and reading innerHTML; an SPA re-render detaches the node; the frame containing the element was closed; the browser/tab was closed mid-call; the CDP session stalled past the timeout.

Common situations: Caching element handles across page.goto() calls; reading DOM state from a page being torn down at iteration end; slow or overloaded browser sessions in CI.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@3fcf5388d7 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/987a07e9bcd4409e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/js/modules/k6/browser/common/element_handle.go:997

	}

	applySlowMo(h.ctx)

	return nil
}

// InnerHTML returns the inner HTML of the element.
func (h *ElementHandle) InnerHTML() (string, error) {
	innerHTML := func(apiCtx context.Context, handle *ElementHandle) (any, error) {
		return handle.innerHTML(apiCtx)
	}
	opts := NewElementHandleBaseOptions(h.DefaultTimeout())
	innerHTMLAction := h.newAction(
		[]string{}, innerHTML, opts.Force, withRetry, opts.NoWaitAfter, opts.Timeout,
	)
	v, err := call(h.ctx, innerHTMLAction, opts.Timeout)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("getting element's inner HTML: %w", err)
	}

	applySlowMo(h.ctx)

	s, ok := v.(string)
	if !ok {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("unexpected type %T (expecting string)", v)
	}

	return s, nil
}

// InnerText returns the inner text of the element.
func (h *ElementHandle) InnerText() (string, error) {
	innerText := func(apiCtx context.Context, handle *ElementHandle) (any, error) {
		return handle.innerText(apiCtx)
	}
	opts := NewElementHandleBaseOptions(h.DefaultTimeout())

View on GitHub (pinned to 3fcf5388d7)