ff_profile_dir does nothing

[jimpriest]

I'm trying to use a new Firefox profile so I can control download directory location.

I've created Firefox profile and set directory.

In my Robot test I define the ff_profile_dir:

   Open Browser
    ...  url=${START_URL}
    ...  browser=${BROWSER}
    ...  ff_profile_dir=C:/Users/mydir/AppData/Local/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/robot

Run test - the file is downloaded but not in the correct directory defined in the profile.

Environment

• Windows 10
• geckodriver 0.23.0
• robotframework==3.0.4
• robotframework-seleniumlibrary==3.2.0
• selenium==3.141.0
• Firefox Developer Edition 64
• Firefox 63.0.3

[jimpriest]

I also tried this by creating my own create_profile keyword and calling it - I can see the temp profile get created but again - Robot doesn't seem to use ff_profile_dir...

${profile_path}  Create Profile
Open Browser
...  url=${START_URL}
...  browser=${BROWSER}
...  ff_profile_dir=${profile_path}

def create_profile():
    fp=webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.folderList",1)
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting",False)
    # fp.set_preference("browser.download.dir",path)
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.dir","C:\\downloads")
    fp.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "image/png")
    fp.update_preferences()
    return fp.path

[aaltat]

I am not able to reproduce the problem. When I do this:

| Open Browser | https://github.com/robotframework/SeleniumLibrary/issues/1253 | ff | ff_profile_dir=/home/username/.mozilla/firefox/nfgn0cqg.default | 

And when test is run test, I can see that my profile is used and I am logged in GitHub. When running the test case with --loglevel trace I can see that the send profile is much bigger than the default profile.

I am using:
selenium==3.141.0
robotframework-seleniumlibrary==3.2.0
geckodriver 0.23.0
Firefox 63.0.3

I would try the official release of Firefox and I would check what the geckodriver.log contains.

[bjneuhaus]

@jimpriest you might check if it works for you when using the Firefox-ESR version version.

[jimpriest]

@novacasa Thanks! I'm going to purge my two Firefox installs this morning and then start from scratch. The ESR version looks ideal.

@aaltat Thanks for confirming things work! Will examine geckodriver.log once I get things setup again.

[bjneuhaus]

@jimpriest yw. I also had issues on that but the esr version was fine so I guess I had some version dependency issues - I'll look in that laterwhen I have time in general.
I'd prefer to just install an extension directly instead of using a complete profile like I do with chrome but I didn't get it run in FF so... the workaround rules the world ..

[jimpriest]

Still no luck. Trying Firefox 63.0.3. I tried to both pass in a hard coded path to the profile

    Open Browser
    ...  url=${START_URL}
    ...  browser=${BROWSER}
    ...  ff_profile_dir=C:\\Users\\myhome\\AppData\\Roaming\\Mozilla\\Firefox\\Profiles\\robot

As well as use my create_profile keyword.

def create_profile():
    fp=webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.folderList",1)
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting",False)
    
    # pass in path as an arg
    # def create_profile(path):
    # fp.set_preference("browser.download.dir",path)
    
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.dir","C:\\Downloads")
    fp.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "image/png")
    fp.update_preferences()
    return fp.path

Test runs but no download. Looking in geckodriver.log I see:

1544108375160 mozrunner::runner INFO Running command: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" "-marionette" "-foreground" "-no-remote" "-profile" "C:\Users\39231\AppData\Local\Temp\rust_mozprofile.wgvPvEezUvyd"

Going to try ESR version next.

[jimpriest]

Same issue with 60.3.0esr.

I even set the default profile to my new robot profile, opened it and set the download directory.

[aaltat]

Hmm, I did try in Linux, perhaps the problem is a Windows OS specific.

[jimpriest]

Doing the --loglevel trace I can see the giant string sent for the profile but it doesn't appear there is anything useful there unless there is some way to unravel that blob.

My create_profile returns a valid path with a profile containing a user.js file which has my correct download path...

c:\users\myuser\appdata\local\temp\tmpqcw4xj
user_pref("browser.download.dir", "C:/Users/myuser/Downloads/robot_downloads");

[jimpriest]

If I can do anything to help troubleshoot please let me know. I'd rather not switch to Chrome as that is opening another can of worms :)

[aaltat]

I did modify your code and I did get the automatic download working with this code:

from selenium import webdriver


def create_profile():
    fp = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", False)
    fp.set_preference("browser.download.dir", "D:\\tmp\\foobar")
    fp.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "text/csv,application/java-archive, application/x-msexcel,application/excel,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document,application/x-excel,application/vnd.ms-excel,image/png,image/jpeg,text/html,text/plain,application/msword,application/xml,application/vnd.microsoft.portable-executable")
    fp.update_preferences()
    return fp.path

And by running this test:

*** Settings ***
Library           SeleniumLibrary
Library           ./foo.py

*** Test Cases ***
Test 1
    ${ff} =    Create Profile
    Open Browser    https://www.seleniumhq.org/download/    ff    ff_profile_dir=${ff}
    Sleep    3
    Click Element    //p[text()='Download version ']/a
   # Keyword where which pols the correct file is present.  

There are two differences in the create_profile method:

1. fp.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 1) -> fp.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
2. The MIME types are wider than in your example

The MIME types are based on this blog post. But because SeleniumLibrary and also Firefox seems to be working correctly, I am closing the issue.

[jimpriest]

IT WORKS! I could have sworn I tried browser.download.folderList = 2 but that may have been before I reinstalled my browsers.

Thank you so much!

[Mohit3095]

I am facing a similar problem.
When i run the below test case:
Open Browser https://www.google.com browser=ff ff_profile_dir=C:/Users/userid/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/Selenium

It opens firefox but it doesn't load the Selenium profile, instead it creates a temporary file and opens that.
Environment:

Windows 10
geckodriver 0.22.0
robotframework==3.1.1
robotframework-seleniumlibrary==3.0.1
selenium==3.141.0
Firefox : 66.0.3
 Python 2.7.10

Here is the profile when i look it in Firefox -> Help-> Troubleshooting Information