Waiting and Timeouts in BAS

The single most common reason a bot acts on the wrong thing is timing — it clicked before the page was ready. The Wait module is the fix: it lets you pause until a real condition is met, instead of guessing.

What the Wait module is for

It calls pauses between your actions and waits for the things a page does asynchronously: selectors, text, file downloads, the browser’s address, loading a specific URL, and full page load. It’s a small module, but it’s the backbone of reliable flows.

The waits you’ll use

• Wait for full load — pause until the page has finished loading before interacting.
• Wait for URL load — wait until a specific URL has loaded, useful after a redirect or navigation.
• Wait for browser address — wait until the address bar shows the URL you expect, confirming you’ve actually arrived.
• Wait for text — pause until specific text appears on the page, a reliable signal that a step succeeded.
• Wait for CSS — wait until an element matching a selector exists before you act on it.
• Wait for file download — pause until a download finishes before using the file.
• Sleep — a plain fixed delay, for the rare case where no condition fits.

Condition waits beat fixed sleeps

A fixed sleep is a guess, and guesses are wrong in both directions: too short and the bot acts before the page is ready; too long and every iteration is needlessly slow. Waiting for a condition — text, an element, a completed load — adapts to how fast the site actually responds. The bot continues the instant the page is ready and not before.

Reach for Wait for CSS or Wait for text before clicking or extracting, and Wait for full load after navigation. Save plain sleep for the genuinely rare moments when there’s nothing concrete to wait on — and even then, randomise it so the pause looks human. Get waiting right and most of the flakiness disappears from your bots.