RSelenium fails to open browser

Question

I wan't to use Selenium for webscrapping from R.

• My Windows version: Windows 11, 21H2
• I have the latest Java update. (1.8.0_351) Commenting it since I've seen it could be a fix in this cases.

However, when defining the driver object I get the following error:

Could not open chrome browser.
Client error message:
Undefined error in httr call. httr output: Failed to connect to localhost port 14415: Connection refused
Check server log for further details.
Warning message:
In rsDriver(browser = "chrome", chromever = "109.0.5414.74", verbose = FALSE,  :
  Could not determine server status. 

When checking the server log for further details I get:

Could not find or load main class c(-Dwebdriver.chrome.driver=\"C:\\\\Users\\\\xherr\\\\AppData\\\\Local\\\\binman\\\\binman_chromedriver\\\\win32\\\\109.0.5414.74.chromedriver.exe\","

Here's my code:

library(tidyverse)
library(RSelenium)
library(netstat)
library(Rcpp)
library(wdman)

binman::list_versions("chromedriver")


rdriver <- rsDriver(browser = "chrome",
                    chromever = "109.0.5414.74",
                    verbose = TRUE,
                    port = free_port())

rdriver$server$log()

Does anyone know how to fix this? Thank you very much

Answer 1

I recommend 'remoteDriver' instead of 'rsDriver'

binman::list_versions(appname = 'chromedriver')
driver<-wdman::chrome(port=4576L, version = '108.0.5359.71')

# first data
remote<-remoteDriver(port=4576L, browserName='chrome')
remote$open()

Answer 2

I have experienced exactly the same issue since I upgraded to chromedriver 109.0.5414.74. It might be a problem with the latest chromedriver version.

The only way I make rsDriver to run again was by replacing in your code 109.0.5414.74 by 108.0.5359.71.

Try:

library(tidyverse)
library(RSelenium)
library(netstat)
library(Rcpp)
library(wdman)
    
binman::list_versions("chromedriver")
    
    
rdriver <- rsDriver(browser = "chrome",
chromever = "108.0.5359.71",
verbose = TRUE,
port = free_port())
    
rdriver$server$log()

Answer 3

The chrome driver version "109.0.5414.74" now includes an additional file that confuses wdman/binman. Using an earlier version like chromever = "108.0.5359.71" will work. Alternatively you can use the newer drivers by finding your chrome driver path using selenium(retcommand = T) and deleting the LICENSE.chromedriver files