[🐛 Bug]: `spawn': no implicit conversion of nil into String (TypeError)

[pgundlupetvenkatesh]

What happened?

Throws no implicit conversion of nil into String (TypeError) error when trying to launch a browser.

Gem versions -
Watir v7.1.0
webdriver v5.2.0

How can we reproduce the issue?

require 'watir'

Watir::Browser.new(:edge)

Happens for Chrome too. Type :chrome to use.

### Relevant log output

```shell
<dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/child_process.rb:57:in `spawn': no implicit conversion of nil into String (TypeError)

        @pid = Process.spawn(*@command, options)
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/child_process.rb:57:in `start'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/service_manager.rb:102:in `start_process'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/service_manager.rb:56:in `block in start'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/socket_lock.rb:42:in `locked'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/service_manager.rb:54:in `start'
        from <internal:kernel>:90:in `tap'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/service.rb:83:in `launch'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:334:in `service_url'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/local_driver.rb:28:in `initialize_local_driver'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/edge/driver.rb:34:in `initialize'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:55:in `new'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:55:in `for'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-4.8.2/lib/selenium/webdriver.rb:88:in `for'
        from <dir_path>/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/watir-7.1.0/lib/watir/browser.rb:46:in `initialize'
        from (irb):5:in `new'
        from (irb):5:in `<main>'
        ... 3 levels...

Operating System

Windows 10 Enterprise

Selenium version

selenium-webdriver v4.8.2, Ruby 3.2.1 (2023-02-08 revision 31819e82c8) [x64-mingw-ucrt]

What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

Edge v111.0.1661.51, Chrome v111.0.5563.65

What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

chromedriver v111.0.5563.64, msedgedriver v111.0.1661.51

Are you using Selenium Grid?

No

[github-actions]

@pgundlupetvenkatesh, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

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Thank you!

[titusfortner]

Can you add this before your code and provide the stdout: Selenium::WebDriver.logger.level = :debug

[Judahmeek]

@titusfortner I'm getting this in Github Actions at: https://github.com/shakacode/react_on_rails/actions/runs/4521103178/jobs/7962660421?pr=1533#step:20:157
...which you probably can view since it's a public open-source repository.

Looks like the error is that *@command is nil : DEBUG Selenium Executing Process [nil, "--port=9515"]

The odd thing is that I can't reproduce this locally on my intel mac (Ventura 13.2.1).
Our Github Actions workflow, on the other hand, is using Ubuntu 22.04.2

Please let me know if there's any more information I can provide to expedite this.

[titusfortner]

So Windows & Linux, but not Mac. 😦
You are both using webdrivers gem. The big change in 4.8.2 was to create a DriverFinder class to better support the new SeleniumManager features. This should replace the need for webdrivers gem, so first, can you remove require webdrivers and see what happens?

Still need to figure out what is going on.

@command is coming from this line in ServiceManager:

build_process(@executable_path, "--port=#{@port}", *@extra_args)

So it is @executable_path that is nil for some reason.

ServiceManager only has that set in its constructor from Service class.

So somehow the executable_path= in Service is getting sent nil without an exception getting raised.

Webdrivers gem works by managing the driver location and setting it in on the browser class with driver_path=, which gets picked up in the new DriverFinder"
https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/trunk/rb/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver_finder.rb#L24

Oh, I see exactly what's going on. I added a deprecation, but didn't handle setting the Service Path.
You're hitting this line:
https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/blob/trunk/rb/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/local_driver.rb#L41

So DriverFinder isn't getting called. Which it can't be because that class can only handle Options instances and capabilities could be other things as well, but it still needs to be because we aren't processing driver_path outside of it...

Ok. I can fix.

[titusfortner]

Thanks for reporting this. Here are the options:

1. Try removing webdrivers gem dependency, the new Selenium Manager functionality should work
2. Update off of deprecated capabilities to use options (though this is probably Capybara & Watir's fault not yours)
3. I added the fix 45fcc05 which will be available on the next release
4. In about an hour tomorrow you should be able to use the nightly version: https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/pkgs/rubygems/selenium-webdriver

Please let me know if you try option 4 and it doesn't work.

Edit: My initial fix missed something so tonight's nightly gem won't work.

[pgundlupetvenkatesh]

Thanks for reporting this. Here are the options:

1. Try removing webdrivers gem dependency, the new Selenium Manager functionality should work
2. Update off of deprecated capabilities to use options (though this is probably Capybara & Watir's fault not yours)
3. I added the fix 45fcc05 which will be available on the next release
4. In about an hour tomorrow you should be able to use the nightly version: https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/pkgs/rubygems/selenium-webdriver

Please let me know if you try option 4 and it doesn't work.

Edit: My initial fix missed something so tonight's nightly gem won't work.

Just tried to install from the link you mentioned in option 4 and I got below error.

$ gem install selenium-webdriver --version "4.8.2.nightly.20230326"
ERROR:  Could not find a valid gem 'selenium-webdriver' (= 4.8.2.nightly.20230326) in any repository
ERROR:  Possible alternatives: bbc-selenium-webdriver, rainux-selenium-webdriver, selenium-webdriver, selenium-webdriver-element-decorators, selenium-webdriver-element-extend_click_again, selenium-webdriver-full-screenshot, selenium-webdriver-rails-support-via-monkeypatch, selenium-webdriver-rails-support-via-monkeypatch.gemspec, selenium-webdriver-viewers, selenium_webdriver_helper

I couldn't install it from the Gemfile as my workplace security layers blocked it when it prompted for Github's username and password.

Option 1, tried removing webdrivers dependency gem from my project but that didn't work too... was getting the same original selenium-webdriver error.

Option 2, I have been using options: parameters Watir::Browser.new(:edge, options: options) from the start... If I got you correct.

[titusfortner]

Ah yeah you'd also need to remove drivers from PATH in addition to removing webdrivers gem.

I'll take a look the Watir code soon. I thought I'd already updated it, but apparently not.

For now, stick to Selenium 4.8.1

[pgundlupetvenkatesh]

Updated selenium-weddriver to v4.8.6 and it works fine now. Thank you.

[github-actions]

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