Python 2.7 - Selenium headless testing with Xvfb not working

Question

Note I have already looked at the following sources:

easyprocess.EasyProcessCheckInstalledError: cmd=['Xvfb', '-help'] OSError=[Errno 2] No such file or directory

How do I run Selenium in Xvfb?

Which did not solve my problem.

I am using:

• Python 2.7
• selenium 3.0.2
• xvfbwrapper 0.2.9
• PyVirtualDisplay 0.2.1

Running on Mac OSX El Capitan (10.11.6 (15G1108))

I get the following error (which is the same one that is in the above link):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/user/Desktop/test.py", line 50, in <module>
    display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pyvirtualdisplay/display.py", line 34, in __init__
    self._obj = self.display_class(
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pyvirtualdisplay/display.py", line 52, in display_class
    cls.check_installed()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pyvirtualdisplay/xvfb.py", line 38, in check_installed
    ubuntu_package=PACKAGE).check_installed()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/easyprocess/__init__.py", line 180, in check_installed
    raise EasyProcessCheckInstalledError(self)
EasyProcessCheckInstalledError: cmd=['Xvfb', '-help']
OSError=[Errno 2] No such file or directory
Program install error! 

I know I have Xvfb installed as well:

Xvfb -help
use: X [:<display>] [option]
-a #                   default pointer acceleration (factor)
-ac                    disable access control restrictions
-audit int             set audit trail level
-auth file             select authorization file
-br                    create root window with black background
+bs                    enable any backing store support
-bs                    disable any backing store support
-c                     turns off key-click
...
-pixdepths list-of-int support given pixmap depths
+/-render          turn on/off RENDER extension support(default on)
-linebias n            adjust thin line pixelization
-blackpixel n          pixel value for black
-whitepixel n          pixel value for white
-fbdir directory       put framebuffers in mmap'ed files in directory
-shmem                 put framebuffers in shared memory

If the pip install is looking for xvfb in a different directory, some guidance would be appreciated as to how to redirect where it's looking.

Here is my code:

from easyprocess import EasyProcess
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display
from selenium import webdriver

display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
display.start()

# now Firefox will run in a virtual display. 
# you will not see the browser.
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('http://www.google.com')
print browser.title
browser.quit()

display.stop()

I've done countless pip installs and google searches and nothing has helped so far, the ultimate end goal is to have a headless automation that is capable of handling downloads, something PhantomJS is unable to do. Any help in that subject would be appreciated as well.

Answer 1

I dont see why you cant use this with osx, I have done that in past. But I have a better solution. Why dont you use docker + VNC . install any browser of your choice and run everything in the background Advantage: 1. Everything runs in the background. 2. Monitor execution in the browser with VNC web view 3. launch as many container as you want for parallel execution.