Python – Fix WebDriverException with ChromeDriver in Selenium

google-chromepythonseleniumselenium-chromedriverwebdriver

I am trying to run webdriver in a Python script, and when the script tries to run google chrome it exits with status code 11.

Here is the python script: 

#!/usr/bin/python3
import time
from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome('/usr/bin/google-chrome')  # Optional argument, if not specified will search path.
driver.get('http://www.google.com/');
time.sleep(5) # Let the user actually see something!
search_box = driver.find_element_by_name('q')
search_box.send_keys('ChromeDriver')
search_box.submit()
time.sleep(5) # Let the user actually see something!
driver.quit()

Here is the full output:

[ec2-user@ip-xxx-xx-xx-xxx pythonscrape]$ python3 test-selenium-chrome.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test-selenium-chrome.py", line 5, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Chrome('/usr/bin/google-chrome')  # Optional argument, if not specified will search path.
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/chrome/webdriver.py", line 73, in __init__
    self.service.start()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/common/service.py", line 98, in start
    self.assert_process_still_running()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/common/service.py", line 111, in assert_process_still_running
    % (self.path, return_code)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Service /usr/bin/google-chrome unexpectedly exited. Status code was: -11

Does anyone know why my script reports the error code 11 when trying to run google chrome?

Best Answer

This error message...

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Service /usr/bin/google-chrome unexpectedly exited. Status code was: -11

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to initiate/spawn the new Browsing Context i.e. Chrome Browser session properly.

Seems you were almost there. The default argument for webdriver.Chrome() is the absolute path of the ChromeDriver binary. However, as per best practices you must send both the Key and the Value as follows:

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='/path/to/chromedriver')  # Optional argument, if not specified will search path

Further, if you need to pass the absolute path of the Chrome binary you have to use the binary_location property through an instance of chrome.options as follows:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.binary_location = '/path/to/chrome'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path='/path/to/chromedriver')
driver.get('http://google.com/')

Reference

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