WebDriverException: Message: invalid argument: can

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.

Answer 1

After all the discussion within the comments it seems you erred the command to download GeckoDriver and possibly some issues with downloading and/or installing Firefox.

---

GeckoDriver

The command to install geckodriver within ubuntu was error prone:

!apt install firefox-geckodriver

Here are the detailed steps:

• Browse to the geckodriver releases page. Checkout the compatible version of GeckoDriver for your platform and download it as follows:

  wget https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/download/v0.24.0/geckodriver-v0.24.0-linux64.tar.gz
  

• Extract the file with:

  tar -xvzf geckodriver*
  

• Make it executable:

  chmod +x geckodriver
  

• Add the driver to your PATH so other tools can find it:

  export PATH=$PATH:/path-to-extracted-file/.
  

Reference: How to install geckodriver in Ubuntu?

---

Firefox

The latest version of Firefox is always available as a security updates in all supported releases of Ubuntu and a normal update will install it. You need to enable the security or you need to update the repositories (e. g. Software & Updates -> Updates). You need to enable the Security by default but better to check if the package manager doesn't updates Firefox by default.

You can find the detailed steps in:

• Firefox New Version - Community Help Wiki
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/181607/how-to-install-thunderbird-15-on-ubuntu-12-04

Reference: How do I install the latest stable version of Firefox?

---

Update

Selenium Client Driver page mentions:

• Supported Python Versions:

  Python 2.7, 3.4+
  

• But the list on selenium 3.141.0 page includes only:

  • Python :: 2.7
  • Python :: 3.4
  • Python :: 3.5
  • Python :: 3.6

So possibly Python 3.7 is still not supported and you may have to downgrade to a relevant version.

---

Outro

SessionNotCreatedException: Message: Unable to create new service: ChromeDriverService with Selenium 3.14.0 and Python 3.7.3