[🐛 Bug]: "Near" relative locator doesn't work for the dotNet

[mpushnikA1QA]

What happened?

I came across the fact that the Near relative locator for dotNet does not work.
I tried to debag, and found that I did not have the element. I get null at this point - js.ExecuteScript(wrappedAtom, parameters);
https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/trunk/dotnet/src/webdriver/RelativeBy.cs#L109

Message: 
System.NullReferenceException : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

There are no tests for near relative locators in the dotNet project - https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/b6b209602d544b769a0f4635022cf55a7b8f81b4/dotnet/test/common/RelativeLocatorTest.cs

At the same time, test coverage looks better for Java - https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/trunk/java/test/org/openqa/selenium/support/locators/RelativeLocatorTest.java

How can we reproduce the issue?

I tried using the web page https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/trunk/common/src/web/relative_locators.html
 to test relative locators and add a test for the Near locator (By analogy with Java tests): 

[Test]
public void ShouldBeAbleToFindElementsNear()
{
 var elements = seleniumDriver.FindElements(RelativeBy
                            .WithLocator(By.TagName("td"))
                            .Near(By.Id("center")));

 Assert.That(elements, Is.EquivalentTo(new List<string> { "second", "eighth", "fourth", "sixth", "first", "third", "seventh", "ninth" }));"seventh", "ninth");
}

the elements variable is null.

Relevant log output

Message: 
System.ArgumentException : Expected: IEnumerable But was: null (Parameter 'actual')

Operating System

Windows 10

Selenium version

.Net

What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

Chrome

What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

chromedriverVersion, 121.0.6167.184

Are you using Selenium Grid?

No

[github-actions]

@mpushnikA1QA, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

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Thank you!

[titusfortner]

we are not currently prioritizing work in the support packages.

[github-actions]

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Please comment below or reach out to us through our IRC/Slack/Matrix channels if you are interested.

[RenderMichael]

I figured out the problem - when we get back no elements the response will be [], and the de-serializer will not know we are getting back elements. As such, the as ReadOnlyCollection<IWebElement> will not work because the actual runtime type will be ReadOnlyCollection<object>.

Edit: Turns out that fixed a general deserializer problem, but Near still didn't work. I updated the PR to make it work.

[github-actions]

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