Selenium WebDriver ↔ UI Pagination: Detecting End‑of‑Data Boundary

Goal: Establish a dependable Selenium‑WebDriver approach to detect the final page of a paginated dataset so that test scripts can stop iteration accurately.

Current practice relies on either observing a “disabled” attribute on the next‑page control or comparing page‑source hashes before and after a navigation action. Both techniques can be flaky when the UI renders dynamically, when the disabled state is applied via CSS classes, or when network latency causes stale‑element references.

Uncertainty remains about which signal provides a more robust boundary across different pagination implementations (traditional button‑based, link‑based, or JavaScript‑driven) and whether combining UI checks with Selenium 4 DevTools network‑idle events yields a reliable solution without excessive overhead.

Which indicator—UI‑based disabled state, hash‑change detection, or DevTools‑derived network idle—offers the least flaky termination condition for paginated data? Can a hybrid approach that waits for both the UI control to become non‑clickable and the network to be idle guarantee consistent detection across Selenium 4 and later versions?