PyCharm unable to connect to GhostDriver

Question

I have a unit test that is passing when I run it via python manage.py test , but failing when I run it from within PyCharm.

def test_alpha(self):
    from selenium.webdriver.common.utils import free_port
    from selenium import webdriver

    driver = webdriver.PhantomJS(executable_path=PHANTOMJS_PATH, port=free_port())
    driver.quit()

The exception I get when running from PyCharm is

WebDriverException: Message: 'Can not connect to GhostDriver' 

I've spent a fair amount of time digging into this problem, and I've noticed that when I specify a port manually the test passes within PyCharm.

# suppose 50000 happens to be a free port on your computer
driver = webdriver.PhantomJS(executable_path=PHANTOMJS_PATH, port=50000)

To quickly recap:

• Test passes with python manage.py test
• Test passes in PyCharm if port is specified manually
• Test fails in PyCharm if port=free_port()

What is PyCharm doing that is making the test unable to connect to Ghostdriver?

---

# For convenience, the `free_port()` code snippet is here
# selenium.webdriver.common.utils.freeport

def free_port():
    free_socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    free_socket.bind(('127.0.0.1', 0))
    free_socket.listen(5)
    port = free_socket.getsockname()[1]
    free_socket.close()
    return port 

Answer 1

Try installing phantomjs with npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/phantomjs . I use Mac OS X and I had a similar issue using by selenium and django.

Answer 2

Something in your terminal setup probably influences the networking.

Try to start PyCharm from your terminal :

open -a /Applications/PyCharm.app/

Then run the test again, and it should pass.

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Source: sum-up of @CrazyCoder's comments