Selenium Python selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: connection refused using geckodriver and firefox

Question

I'm having issues running my automation test scripts. When I run my script, a browser will appear but it will not type the URL and waits for 10 seconds until it throws an exception. Is there any solutions I can use so then I can get my automation test scripts to work?

Geckodriver.log:

1523997052492   geckodriver INFO    geckodriver 0.20.1
1523997052531   geckodriver INFO    Listening on 127.0.0.1:37807
1523997052592   mozrunner::runner   INFO    Running command: "/usr/bin/firefox/firefox" "-marionette" "--headless" "-profile" "/tmp/rust_mozprofile.PU1cngaAJ5Tg"
1523997054831   Marionette  INFO    Listening on port 2828

Stack Traces:

Error
Traceback (most recent call last):
File 
"/home/kavin/PycharmProjects/untitled/Testing/purchaseAmazonItems.py", line 13, in setUp
self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary, firefox_options=opts)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/webdriver.py", line 162, in __init__
keep_alive=True)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 154, in __init__
self.start_session(desired_capabilities, browser_profile)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 243, in start_session
response = self.execute(Command.NEW_SESSION, parameters)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 312, in execute
self.error_handler.check_response(response)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 242, in check_response
raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: connection refused

Code:

def setUp(self):
    binary = FirefoxBinary('/usr/bin/firefox/firefox')
    opts = FirefoxOptions()
    opts.add_argument("--headless")
    self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary, firefox_options=opts)
    driver = self.driver
    driver.get('https://www.amazon.com/')

Specs:

Ubuntu 16.04
geckodriver 0.20.1
firefox 59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.3
Python 3.6
Pycharm 2016.3
Selenium 3.11.0

Answer 1

In absence of the error stack trace configuration issues are pretty hard to debug. Having said that I don't see any major issues in your code block. You may require to perform some additional steps as follows :

• Pass the Key executable_path along with the Value referring to the absolute path of the GeckoDriver as follows :

  def setUp(self):
      binary = FirefoxBinary('/usr/bin/firefox/firefox')
      opts = FirefoxOptions()
      opts.add_argument("--headless")
      self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary, firefox_options=opts, executable_path='/path/to/geckodriver')
      driver = self.driver
      driver.get('https://www.amazon.com/')
  

• Clean your Project Workspace through your IDE and Rebuild your project with required dependencies only.

• Use CCleaner tool to wipe off all the OS chores before and after the execution of your Test Suite.
• If your base Web Client version is too old, then uninstall it through Revo Uninstaller and install a recent GA and released version of Web Client.
• Take a System Reboot.
• Execute your @Test.
• Always invoke driver.quit() within tearDown(){} method to close & destroy the WebDriver and Web Client instances gracefully.

Alternative

As an alternative you can also try to use the set_headless(headless=boolean_value) as follows :

def setUp(self):
    binary = FirefoxBinary('/usr/bin/firefox/firefox')
    opts = FirefoxOptions()
    opts.set_headless(headless=True)
    self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary, firefox_options=opts, executable_path='/path/to/geckodriver')
    driver = self.driver
    driver.get('https://www.amazon.com/')

Here you can find a detailed discussion on How to make firefox headless programatically in Selenium with python?

Answer 2

These two commands both start a webdriver on the same port. The second one causes the error because the port is already in use:

self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary)
browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_options=opts)

To correct this, set the options before initializing the driver (in the first command).

self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary, firefox_options=opts)