Getting Chrome to launch via Selenium

Question

I am having issues getting an instance of a Chrome browser from selenium in python. I'm using Windows 8. I have downloaded the chromedriver binary and added it to my path but I get the following error in Python:

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'ChromeDriver executable needs to be available in the path.   

This error occurs for the following line:

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='path\to\chromedriver_win32_2.0')  

Delight

Have you read this yet? – Pickaback

Click on the work "this". – Pickaback

Oh dear that was stupid, couldn't see the link. Sorry, but I read it and it has no info about where Chrome is expected to be installed for Windows 8. – Delight

You need to download the chrome driver that is provided in the link, and make that available in the path. – Benefactress

Thank you for your response but if you read the question, I did that already. – Delight

Path is C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_43\bin;%path%;C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Scripts;C:\Program Files\Java64\bin;C:\Users\HaranKumar\Downloads\chromedriver_win32_2.0 and in the line is: 'C:\Users\HaranKumar\Downloads\chromedriver_win32_2.0' Thanks for the help! – Delight

Answer 1

Two ways to set it, you somehow mixed up.

• Put the chromedriver.exe's path into PATH (on Windows), so your PATH setting is correct, but you need to call the default constructor.

  driver = webdriver.Chrome()

• Specify the path in webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='some path'). Here you need the full path to the executable, not the directory.

  webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=r'C:\Users\HaranKumar\Downloads\chromedriver_win32_2.0\chromedriver.exe')

Choose either one you want.

Enrich

for windows use double slash webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='C:\\drivers\\chromedriver.exe') – Handcrafted

Answer 2

Assuming that your path is correct, make sure that you include the chromedriver itself: chromedriver.exe

Barmy

Having the file in PATH wasn't enough for me. Put it to `Python\Scripts`. – Brezhnev

Answer 3

I used the following and it worked! Thanks!

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=r'C:\chromedriver.exe')
#put your own path between the ''

Weaver

Answer 4

Even if you have chromedriver.exe in the PATH, its necessary to have chromedriver.exe in the folder where your executable scripts are present(atleast so is the case when it comes to python scripts)

Midship

Answer 5

for python(selenium) you will need:

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

then put your chromedriver.exe path in. the "r" is just to prevent it from detecting the \ and causing errors in python

PATH = r"C:\Program Files (x86)\chromedriver.exe"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(PATH)
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()

you can now order the driver to get websites

driver.get('http://www.google.com')

Synectics

Answer 6

Update 2021 For Python

I got Selenium to open my default Chrome browser with my profile using this:

options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\Sams\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data")
options.add_argument('--profile-directory=Default')

1. Go to: chrome://version/
2. Look for your "Profile Path" profile path image
3. Copy your Profile Path and replace "options.add_argument("--user-data-dir={YOUR PROFILE PATH}")"
4. The second argument may also look different. Mine so happens to be "Default". For other it may be "Profile 1" or "Profile X" X being an incrementing number.
5. Close all your Chrome browsers before running. Because the Chrome Driver cannot run an automated browser alongside the rest of your other tabs.

Here is my entire Selenium Config. Hopefully it helps someone.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.remote.webdriver import WebDriver
    

options = Options()
options.add_argument("--window-size=1920,1080")
options.add_argument("--log-level=3")
options.add_experimental_option('excludeSwitches', ['enable-logging'])


# The 2 arguments below will use your main browser. 
options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\Sams\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data") # profile path (C)
options.add_argument('--profile-directory=Default')

options.headless = False # To show Chrome or not to show?
PATH = (r"C:\Users\Sams\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37-32\Lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\chrome\chromedriver.exe") 

CHROMEDRIVER_PATH = PATH
driver = webdriver.Chrome(CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, options=options)

Mcghee

Answer 7

I recently ran into this error and I found three main solutions for this chromedriver not in path error

1. download a library that does it - webdriver_manager or chromedriver_autoinstaller both work
2. add it to path in your program
3. add chromedriver executable to your system PATH

Puffin

Answer 8

Update 2016

The following solution works for me, with WebDriver 3.0.1, Chrome Driver 2.25.426923, Window 7

    System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver","D:\\workspace\\chromedriver.exe");
    WebDriver driver;
    driver = new ChromeDriver();

*Note:

• Chrome Driver
• See also: http://www.frontendtest.org/blog/path-executable-chrome/

Wintertide