python selenium webdriver issue ( selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: "Can't load the profile. Profile Dir: )

Question

I'm using Mac OS X 10.8.3, selenium 2.32.0, python 2.7, Firefox Version 20 and have been getting this error when running the python binding:

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: 
    Message: "Can't load the profile. Profile Dir: /var/folders/vn/8h6w79td4p59l9h9xhx2986r0000gn/T/tmpTmsdul Firefox output:  LOG addons.xpi: startup
    LOG addons.xpi: Skipping unavailable install location app-system-share
    LOG addons.xpi: checkForChanges
    LOG addons.xpi: No changes found
    2013-04-11 21:59:09.107 firefox-bin[26167:707] invalid drawable"

Firefox opens, but doesn't load the url that I've supplied in my python selenium script. I've seen many others with this issue like this post:

post from stackoverflow

But I've tracked it down to the fact that I am running a local development site off localhost. In my hosts file I have it set:

127.0.0.1 local.development.com

When I change it back to the original:

127.0.0.1 localhost

Everything works great. Now it's easy to just edit my hosts file to switch between this local development site and selenium. But wanted to ask if there was a way I can keep my local development site up and running and still use selenium at the same time.

Any suggestions or details. Maybe some explanation of the internal workings too, please? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You need the entry for localhost in your hosts file. But you can add your local.development.com.

So make sure you have:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 local.development.com

In your hosts file. Rather than just one or the other. The hosts file is a mapping from domain names to IP addresses. You can have lots of domain names that point to the same IP address. But Selenium explicitly tries to connect to 'localhost'. And you had deleted that entry.