WebDriverException: Message: invalid argument: can't kill an exited process error with Selenium GeckoDriver and Firefox in Google Colab on Ubuntu

Question

In a previous post (enter link description here) the following code (by DebanjanB)

# install firefox, geckodriver, and selenium
!apt-get update
!pip install selenium
!apt install firefox-geckodriver
!cp /usr/lib/geckodriver /usr/bin
!cp /usr/lib/firefox /usr/bin

from selenium import webdriver

binary = '/usr/bin/firefox'
options = webdriver.FirefoxOptions()
options.binary = binary
options.add_argument('start-maximized')
options.add_argument('--headless')
browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_options=options, executable_path='/usr/bin/geckodriver')
browser.get('http://google.com/')

which is correct, caused a version problem. I'm not an expert in Ubuntu.

I use Google Colaboratory, Python3.6, Selenium3.14.

WebDriverException                        Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-2-f7828de5f77c> in <module>()
      4 options.add_argument('start-maximized')
      5 options.add_argument('--headless')
----> 6 browser = webdriver.Firefox(options=options, executable_path='/usr/bin/geckodriver')
      7 driver.get("https://www.google.com")
      8 print(driver.page_source)
/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/webdriver.py in __init__(self, firefox_profile, firefox_binary, timeout, capabilities, proxy, executable_path, options, service_log_path, firefox_options, service_args, desired_capabilities, log_path, keep_alive)
    172                 command_executor=executor,
    173                 desired_capabilities=capabilities,
--> 174                 keep_alive=True)
    175 
    176         # Selenium remote

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py in __init__(self, command_executor, desired_capabilities, browser_profile, proxy, keep_alive, file_detector, options)
    155             warnings.warn("Please use FirefoxOptions to set browser profile",
    156                           DeprecationWarning, stacklevel=2)
--> 157         self.start_session(capabilities, browser_profile)
    158         self._switch_to = SwitchTo(self)
    159         self._mobile = Mobile(self)

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py in start_session(self, capabilities, browser_profile)
    250         parameters = {"capabilities": w3c_caps,
    251                       "desiredCapabilities": capabilities}
--> 252         response = self.execute(Command.NEW_SESSION, parameters)
    253         if 'sessionId' not in response:
    254             response = response['value']

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py in execute(self, driver_command, params)
    319         response = self.command_executor.execute(driver_command, params)
    320         if response:
--> 321             self.error_handler.check_response(response)
    322             response['value'] = self._unwrap_value(
    323                 response.get('value', None))

/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py in check_response(self, response)
    240                 alert_text = value['alert'].get('text')
    241             raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace, alert_text)
--> 242         raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
    243 
    244     def _value_or_default(self, obj, key, default):

WebDriverException: Message: invalid argument: can't kill an exited process

I searched the internet and only found that this is a version conflict between Firefox and Geckodriver. But nobody gives the solution how to choose the compatible versions. This is my problem. Any help is appreciated.

Opus

Can you change firefox_options=options to options=options and retest once again? – Exteroceptor

I did earlier, and the same error message is produced. See line 6 with ----> – Opus

Can you drop the --headless option and let me know the observation? – Exteroceptor

I dropped --headless , and the error message is the same. – Opus

One last try, can you replace binary = '/usr/bin/firefox' with binary = r'/usr/bin/firefox' and executable_path='/usr/bin/geckodriver' with executable_path = r'/usr/bin/geckodriver' – Exteroceptor

Unfortunately the letter r does not help. Is it possible to replace !apt install firefox-geckodriver with other installing method? Maybe instead of bionic using something else? My knowledge about Ubuntu is very little. – Opus

Can you checkout the steps mentioned in the answer within this discussion please? – Exteroceptor

Thanks for the link of the other discussion. – Opus

I tried it on Google Colaboratory same issue . Google chrome working fine . It has to do with firefox rather than geckodriver Even ..>firefox -v | more . Command shows error – Maremma

Answer 1

Following code:

# install firefox, geckodriver, and selenium
!apt-get update
!pip install selenium
!apt install firefox

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

options = webdriver.FirefoxOptions()
options.add_argument('start-maximized')
options.add_argument('--headless')

browser = webdriver.Firefox(options=options)
try:
  browser.get('http://google.com/')
  print(browser.title)
except Exception as e:
  browser.quit()
  raise e

works just fine as on Google-Collab (as per 2024-01-08 update)

Note: options argument, binary & firefox installation had to be revised

Alcantar