webdriver.chrome.binary is ignored

[SiKing]

Description of the problem:
When running my tests in CI, I want to use the latest (Chrome-Beta) browser. So I set the property:

webdriver.chrome.binary = /usr/bin/google-chrome-beta

Unfortunately, webdrivermanager ignores this and detects the previous version, from /usr/bin/google-chrome.

It would be desirable if webdrivermanager respected this property.

Browser and version:
All

Operating system:
All

WebDriverManager version:
4.1.0

WebDriverManager use:
I use the webdriver manager via Serenity-BDD https://github.com/serenity-bdd/serenity-core

[SiKing]

I just tried setting:

wdm.browserPath = /usr/bin/google-chrome-beta

but I still get the wrong version of chromedriver.

[SiKing]

As of this writing I am using:

+ google-chrome --version
Google Chrome 84.0.4147.135 
+ google-chrome-beta --version
Google Chrome 86.0.4240.22 beta

I would like to use version 86, but I always end up with:

WebDriverManager - Using chromedriver 84.0.4147.30 (since Chrome 84 is installed in your machine)

[SiKing]

I had a browse through the source. Apparently wdm.browserPath is just that: a path. The name of the binary is hard-wired in the source to google-chrome.
A fix for this is not trivial.

[eliasnogueira]

Can you try to set this as true @SiKing ?

wdm.useBetaVersions=true

[SiKing]

I still get the same:

[INFO] WebDriverManager - Using chromedriver 84.0.4147.30 (since Chrome 84 is installed in your machine)

Do I need the wdm.browserPath in combination with above?

[eliasnogueira]

Hi @SiKing I think you can try.
But I think you are writing in the comment said that the browser name is hardcoded.

If the wdm.browserPath and the wdm.useBetaVersions won't work I will try to change the chrome binary name when you set both.

[eliasnogueira]

@SiKing I just realized that the wdm.browserPath was introduced into version 4.2.0, and your issue is with 4.1.0.
Can you update the library and try to do the test in the previous comment?

[SiKing]

Finally got it to work! I need:

• version 4.2; version 4.1 does not work
• wdm.useBetaVersions=true

I did not use wdm.browserPath. That looks like it is only needed when the binary is not in the current path already?

[SiKing]

I think I must be going crazy!

Last night I ran my full test suite: ~160 tests, running parallel across 4 threads. The first ~10 tests ran with version 86, as I was expecting. Then the remainder of the tests were run with version 84.

I do not understand how this is possible.

[eliasnogueira]

I will try to reproduce it locally.
Can you tell me if this environment is a headless one and how did you install the Chrome beta @SiKing ?

[SiKing]

This is on Jenkins, so headless.
Our admin installed Chrome-Beta from an .rpm. It gets updated periodically (weekly) from a cron.

[bonigarcia]

The wdm.browserPath configuration key (or its equivalent method .browserPath()) should be enough to solve this issue. I have just committed an example of this: ChromeBetaTest

@SiKing Maybe your problem is that you are using Chrome and Chrome beta in the same test suite. Since WebDriverManager caches the found browser version, it can cause problems in this case. The solution should be using .clearResolutionCache() as well (in the tests using beta versions, for instance). But I have just discovered a bug in that method. I have committed another path to solve it. It should be available in the next version of wdm, to be released soon, stay tuned.

BTW the expected value of wdm.browserPath is not just a path, it is the full browser path. I have explained it better in the README.

[bonigarcia]

@SiKing Please update to WebDriverManager 4.2.1, just released and use .browserPath() and .clearResolutionCache() as in the example before. It should work.

[bonigarcia]

Or even better, use version 4.2.2 (former version has a bug related to Edge).

[SiKing]

This now works.

I used version 4.2.2, and only wdm.browserPath. In my test suite I do not mix Chrome versions, so I did not use the clear cache thing.
Ran my entire test suite twice, just to be sure.

So just out of curiosity, what does wdm.useBetaVersions do?

[bonigarcia]

The configuration key wdm.useBetaVersions is used for beta versions in drivers (i.e. > stable). In this case, it should not be necessary since the wdm.browserPath is used to find the browser version, and with that, wdm can match the proper driver version (independently to the stable version).