Please provide a complete executable scenario and a complete sample page to reproduce
the issue 

I cant share with the page on which i am working due to privacy and is not available
open.
But I can provide you the code:

In this iframe is used to show any error message.. not to upload any doc.
When this INPUT Element is accessed using IE Driver 2.41, it is not accessing this
element.

While debugging i checked:
size() == 1;
isEnabled == true;
isDisplayed == false;

It is giving false for isDisplayed, which is true in the case of other browsers.

When i downgraded the IEdriver version to 2.36, it started recognizing this INPUT element.

I'm having the same issue with selenium version 2.42 when using InputElement.SendKeys(path)method
to upload a file.
When I use version 2.39 it works perfectly.

With version 2.42, the script works for one input controller but gives an exception
for another controller. I'm using the same method to send the path in both places.
The difference I noticed was, the failing controller allows multiple files. I'm posting
the code below for reference. 

---------------------------------------------------
This accepts only one file - works well with 2.42
Displayed = true

<input type="file" tabindex="6" id="packingListUpload" name="uploadedFile" class="valid">

---------------------------------------------------
This accepts multiple files - gives an exception with 2.42
Displayed = false with 2.42.
with 2.39 it's Displayed = true

<input type="file" name="excludeDocument" id="excludeDocument" data-role="upload" multiple="multiple"
autocomplete="off">

---------------------------------------------------

I experience the same issue, had to freeze to version 2.39 because after that it complains
that input is hidden on my target browsers: IE11, IE10, IE9. However Chrome and Firefox
works perfectly on newer versions like 2.40 2.41 2.42

I think after these encounters the issue is self explanatory.
Please have a look over it and fix the same.

Closing the issue as there is no reproduction case provided.

You can use the following site to reproduce the problem. I tried with IE Driver Server
2.43.

http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/upload/index

Open the issue again as this is properly reproducable issue and is encountered by many
of the users..
Above is the webpage which can be used to replicate the issue

The file input on the mentioned page is obviousely invisible, it has opacity=0

Drivers for IE, Firefox, Chrome all return false as the result of isDisplayed for this
element, as expected.

But if you use IE Driver Server 2.39 it will upload a file to this controller using
the same method. 
Please refer the attached video

So it was a bug in IE driver 2.39

So you are saying that my code was working with buggy IE driver and now I can't use
it?

I want to say Selenium can't (won't) deal with invisible elements.

But you can use executeJavascript to make an input field visible and fill it.

I can reproduce.

I don't need to executeJavascript to make the input field visible on Chrome or Firefox
but now I need to for IEDriver > 2.39.

Note modern upload pages doesn't show (make visible) the input type=file file name
next to the upload button because they tend to show it nicely in some other place like
the testing example provided by mail4k...@gmail.com.

So Selenium does deal with the invisible upload input on Chrome & Firefox. Is that
a bug? I hope not because uploading for invisible input type=file is so common and
will break my tests if you fix that instead of fixing IEDriver > 2.39 which I think
is the cool solution here ;)

Ah, I see, the issue is not about isDisplayed, it works well.

The real "problem" is ability to sendKeys to an invisible file input field in FF and
Chrome. The specification [1] says:

"
[section 14.3.3] A requirement for key-based interaction with an element is that it
is interactable.
...
[section 14.1] The following conditions must be met for the element to be considered
interactable:
- The element must be displayed, as defined in section 10.1.
...
"

IE conforms to the specification, whereas FF and Chrome don't.

Iа you disagree with this design decision you may raise an issue against the specification
in [2].

[1] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webdriver/raw-file/tip/webdriver-spec.html
[2] http://goo.gl/LxCtcV

Done: https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=26849

Issue 8138 has been merged into this issue.

Issue 8138 has been merged into this issue.

If ability to sendkeys to an invisible file input field in FF & Chrome is stopped.Its
going to break almost all test related to file uploading in our suite.As of now it
does not work with IE9 :(

I think this issue should be merged with this other one, they are the same thing:

https://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/detail?id=3858

Closing the issue as the current implementation conforms to the current specification.
as soon as the issue raised on the specification will be fixed we'll update the implementation.

barancev, if you want the whole thing to be compliant with the specification, I suggest
to remove this feature from Firefox and Chrome driver as they currently support something
they should not.

Oh, sorry, I meant to say that *IE* conforms to the current specification. Firefox and
Chrome conform to the future state of the spec, let them be ahead of the time. There
is no need to break existing client code twice in short time period :)

But IE is more conservative and wants the spec to be updated first. OK, let's reopen
this issue on IE again and wait for the spec to be changed :)

Way to go barancev!

Nowadays the only way I could find to overcome this lack of support of support in IE
and Safari driver is using a web server that has a public IP and then make the test
get the resource (image, file, whatever) from that server.
The problem is that not every client/company has the needed hardware/IP/security policies
mild enough so we can get an Apache up to the testing team.

cheers!

This is a very common issue and I believe a lot of users have encountered. In my case,
all the tests related to file uploading are blocked now on IE. I've no idea whether
there are workarounds for this issue. It's not working properly for me even i use execute
Javascript to set the element visible. So can we get it fixed soon?

There is nothing about opacity css property in section 10.1 of the current spec. So
it should not affect visibility of the element.

Prooflink: http://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver/#determining-visibility

I'm also facing this issue. Would be nice to resolve quickly.

Sending keys to an invisible input element is a special case so that you can upload
files in Selenium, even remotely if your tests are running in a Selenium Grid.

Since this is a special case for Selenium Automation (and the user isn't actually entering
text into a text field as such), I see no reason why we shouldn't fix the IEDriver
to support this.

I set the input element visible via JavaScript, but still cannot upload file successfully.
After sendKeys(fileName) to the input, nothing responses. The Env is: Selenium 2.47+Safari7.
Would be nice to resolve it quickly.

#31

AFAIK only Chrome, Firefox and IE support file upload, not chrome.
If you are running your tests on a grid server, make sure you instantiate a FileDetector
before using sendKeys().