selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: Chrome failed to start with Selenium and Chrome on RaspberryPi

Question

I created some really trivial script to just open browser with specific URL it looks like this:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("http://www.python.org")

Once I execute this with command python /path/to/file.py I get an error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/pi/tmp/test.py", line 4, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Chrome()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/chrome/webdriver.py", line 75, in __init__
    desired_capabilities=desired_capabilities)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 156, in __init__
    self.start_session(capabilities, browser_profile)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 251, in start_session
    response = self.execute(Command.NEW_SESSION, parameters)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 320, in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 242, in check_response
    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally
  (chrome not reachable)
  (The process started from chrome location /usr/bin/chromium is no longer running, so ChromeDriver is assuming that Chrome has crashed.)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.40,platform=Linux 4.14.69-v7+ armv7l)

It seems like I run out of memory or idk. Any idea what could be wrong?

Answer 1

This error message...

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally
  (chrome not reachable)
  (The process started from chrome location /usr/bin/chromium is no longer running, so ChromeDriver is assuming that Chrome has crashed.)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.40,platform=Linux 4.14.69-v7+ armv7l)

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to initiate/spawn a new WebBrowser ie Chrome Browser session.

The version information of the Selenium Client and Chrome would have helped us to analyze your issue. However as per the discussions:

• OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally while executing tests through Selenium start on linux
• Message: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally on AWS Cloud9 with Linux 4.9.85-38.58.amzn1.x86_64 x86_64

Your main issue seems to be incompatibility between the version of the binaries you are using as follows:

• You are using chromedriver=2.40
• Release Notes of chromedriver=2.40 clearly mentions the following :

Supports Chrome v66-68

• The current release version of Chrome is v69.0

If you are using Chrome v69.0 there is a mismatch between ChromeDriver v2.40 and the Chrome Browser v69.0

Solution

• Upgrade ChromeDriver to current ChromeDriver v2.42 level.
• Keep Chrome version between Chrome v68-70 levels. ( as per ChromeDriver v2.42 release notes )
• Clean your Project Workspace through your IDE and Rebuild your project with required dependencies only.