Chromedriver only supports characters in the BMP error while sending Emoji with ChromeDriver Chrome using Selenium Python to Tkinter's label() textbox

Question

I am automating whatsapp messages and would like to send them out through a tkinter window. In this tkinter window I have created a message box with the help of .label() and I am able to connect to whatsapp web through selenium.

Currently, I am able to send out messages already, but without emojis. When I include emojis, I get this error "Chromedriver only supports characters in the BMP". How can I include emojis?

Answer 1

It works for me:

from selenium import webdriver

JS_ADD_TEXT_TO_INPUT = """
  var elm = arguments[0], txt = arguments[1];
  elm.value += txt;
  elm.dispatchEvent(new Event('change'));
  """

browser = webdriver.Chrome('C:\\Python37\\chromedriver.exe')
browser.get("https://google.com/")
elem = browser.find_element_by_name('q')

text = "🌎 🌊 " + u'\u2764'

browser.execute_script(JS_ADD_TEXT_TO_INPUT, elem, text)

Answer 2

This error message...

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: ChromeDriver only supports characters in the BMP

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to send the emoji signal through send_keys() method.

ChromeDriver only supports characters in the BMP is a known issue with Chromium team as ChromeDriver still doesn't support characters with a Unicode after FFFF. Hence it is impossible to send any character beyond FFFF via ChromeDriver. As a result any attempt to send SMP characters (e.g. CJK, Emojis, Symbols, etc) raises the error.

---

Alternative

A potential alternative would be to use GeckoDriver / Firefox.

• Code Block:

    from selenium import webdriver
    from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
    from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
    from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  
    driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\geckodriver.exe')
    driver.get('https://www.google.com/')
    # Chineese Character
    WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.NAME, "q"))).send_keys("𠀀")
    # Emoji Character
    WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.NAME, "q"))).send_keys("💩")
  

• Browser Snapshot:

You can find a relevant discussion in OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriverException: 'unknown error: ChromeDriver only supports characters in the BMP while sending an emoji through C# Selenium

---

Outro

A few links:

• Full Emoji List
• Unicode character inspector

Answer 3

For those who wants to send emojis on Chrome

Solution

    async sendKeysWithEmojis(element, text) {
        const script = `var elm = arguments[0],
        txt = arguments[1];elm.value += txt;
        elm.dispatchEvent(new Event('keydown', {bubbles: true}));
        elm.dispatchEvent(new Event('keypress', {bubbles: true}));
        elm.dispatchEvent(new Event('input', {bubbles: true}));
        elm.dispatchEvent(new Event('keyup', {bubbles: true}));`;
        await this.driver.executeScript(script, element, text);
    }

Call it like so

const element = await this.driver.findElement(selector);
await sendKeysWithEmojis(element, '🚀😀 This one shall pass 🚀😀');

What is happening here? We are emulating native key presses using events

Notice that the {bubbles: true} is optional (Was needed in my case due to a complex wrapped input)