C# Selenium - Failed to Start Tor

Question

I'm trying to launch Tor browser through Selenium in C# using the following code:

using OpenQA.Selenium.Firefox;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace AutomatorApp
{
  public class BrowserAutomator
  {
     public void Automate()
     {

        String torPath = "D:\\Tor Browser\\Browser\\firefox.exe";
        String profilePath = "D:\\Tor Browser\\Browser\\TorBrowser\\Data\\Browser\\profile.default\\";

        FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile(profilePath);
        profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.type", 1);
        profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks", "127.0.0.1");
        profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks_port", 9153);
        profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks_remote_dns", false);

        FirefoxDriverService firefoxDriverService = FirefoxDriverService.CreateDefaultService("D:\\geckodriver-v0.26.0-win64", "geckodriver.exe");
        firefoxDriverService.FirefoxBinaryPath = torPath;

        var firefoxOptions = new FirefoxOptions
        {
            Profile = profile,
            LogLevel = FirefoxDriverLogLevel.Trace
        };

        FirefoxDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(firefoxDriverService, firefoxOptions);
      }
   }
}

However, this shows the error ' Tor Failed to Start ' and the exception simply contains ' Permission denied '. I tried launching the app in administrator mode and ensuring that the folder is accessible by all users but this did not solve the issue.

Interestingly, when I try to launch a Firefox browser using the same setup it works well.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Update - Solved : After updating to the latest Tor version (9.5.1) The final working code:

            FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile(profilePath);
            profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.type", 1);
            profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks", "127.0.0.1");
            profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks_port", 9153);
            profile.SetPreference("network.proxy.socks_remote_dns", false);

            FirefoxDriverService firefoxDriverService = FirefoxDriverService.CreateDefaultService(geckoDriverDirectory);
            firefoxDriverService.FirefoxBinaryPath = torPath;
            firefoxDriverService.BrowserCommunicationPort = 2828;
            var firefoxOptions = new FirefoxOptions
            {
                Profile = null,
                LogLevel = FirefoxDriverLogLevel.Trace
            };
            firefoxOptions.AddArguments("-profile", profilePath);
            FirefoxDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(firefoxDriverService, firefoxOptions);
            driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("https://www.google.com");

Important notes:

The following TOR configs need to be changed in about:config :

• marionette.enabled : true

• marionette.port : set to an unused port, and set this value to firefoxDriverService.BrowserCommunicationPort in your code. This was set to 2828 in my example.

Answer 1

As far as I remember from my attempts a few years ago, TOR with WebDriver didn't work when you set that " Profile " option. Normal Firefox works, but TOR simply doesn't.

If you get a timeout error after this, make sure marionette is enabled on about:config . If it's already enabled, follow what is going on with TOR on start up. Like if the actual firefox browser doesn't load up, stuck at connection launhcer etc, or there is a message box at the browser startup or something... And also make sure no other firefox.exe , geckodriver.exe or tor.exe is running on the background. If multiple executubles are not configured to listen different port numbers, it might cause problems.

    Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("webdriver.gecko.driver", "C:\\TorBrowser\\Browser\\geckodriver.exe");
    var gekcoService = FirefoxDriverService.CreateDefaultService("C:\\TorBrowser\\Browser", "geckodriver.exe");
    var gekcoService.FirefoxBinaryPath = "C:\\TorBrowser\\Browser\\firefox.exe";

    // marionette port that browser listens to. I had it set to a custom port on about:config
    var gekcoService.BrowserCommunicationPort = 50111; 

    // also had given a custom port for geckodriver listen port
    var gekcoService.Port = 9881; 
    var gekcoService.Host = 127.0.0.1;
    var gekcoService.HostName = 127.0.0.1;
    var gekcoService.Start();
    
    var ffOptions = new FirefoxOptions
    {
        AcceptInsecureCertificates = true,
        BrowserExecutableLocation = "C:\\TorBrowser\\Browser\\firefox.exe",
        Profile = null, 
        UnhandledPromptBehavior = UnhandledPromptBehavior.Dismiss
    };
    
    ffOptions.AddArguments("-profile", "C:\\TorBrowser\\Browser\\TorBrowser\\Data\\Browser\\profile.default");
    ffOptions.LogLevel = FirefoxDriverLogLevel.Info;
    ffOptions.PageLoadStrategy = PageLoadStrategy.Eager;
    var ffDriver = new FirefoxDriver(gekcoService, ffOptions);
    ffDriver.Manage().Timeouts().PageLoad = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10);
    ffDriver.Manage().Timeouts().AsynchronousJavaScript = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10);
    ffDriver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30);

Answer 2

Your code block looks perfect to me.

However there seems to be an issue opening the tor Browser 9.5 which uses the default Firefox v68.9.0esr .

You can find a detailed discussion in How to initiate a Tor Browser 9.5 which uses the default Firefox to 68.9.0esr using GeckoDriver and Selenium through Python

---

Solution

The solution will be to install and use either of the following browsers:

• Firefox v77.0.1
• Firefox Nightly v79.0a1

In case you use the above mentioned browsers, you need to:

• Firefox v77.0.1 :

   String torPath = "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe";

• Firefox Nightly v79.0a1

   String torPath = "C:\\Program Files\\Firefox Nightly\\firefox.exe";