Windows: Python doesn't always recognize a customized System PATH for locating the local chromedriver in "seleniumbase/drivers/"

[ksdaftari]

I have been using seleniumbase for past couple months, and noticing getting following error (my machine has windows 10 machine and Chrome browser verison = 94.0.4606.81 installed)

              else:  # Running headless on Linux
                    try:
                        return webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
                    except Exception:
                        # Use the virtual display on Linux during headless errors
                        logging.debug(
                            "\nWarning: Chrome failed to launch in"
                            " headless mode. Attempting to use the"
                            " SeleniumBase virtual display on Linux..."
                        )
                        chrome_options.headless = False
                        return webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
            except Exception as e:
                if headless:
>                   raise Exception(e)
E                   Exception: Message: session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 92        
E                   Current browser version is 94.0.4606.81 with binary path C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

..\venv\lib\site-packages\seleniumbase\core\browser_launcher.py:1621: Exception
----------------------------------------------------- Captured stdout call ----------------------------------------------------- 

*** chromedriver version for download = 2.44 (NOT Latest)

  To upgrade to the latest version of chromedriver,
   run this: >>> sbase install chromedriver latest
  (Requires the latest version of Chrome installed)

Downloading chromedriver_win32.zip from:
https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.44/chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Download Complete!

Extracting ['chromedriver.exe'] from chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Unzip Complete!

The file [chromedriver.exe] was saved to:
~\venv\Lib\site-packages\seleniumbase\drivers/chromedriver.exe

Making [chromedriver.exe 2.44] executable ...
[chromedriver.exe] is now ready for use!


*** chromedriver version for download = 93.0.4577.63 (NOT Latest)

  To upgrade to the latest version of chromedriver,
   run this: >>> sbase install chromedriver latest
  (Requires the latest version of Chrome installed)

Downloading chromedriver_win32.zip from:
https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/93.0.4577.63/chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Download Complete!

Extracting ['chromedriver.exe'] from chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Unzip Complete!

The file [chromedriver.exe] was saved to:
~\venv\Lib\site-packages\seleniumbase\drivers/chromedriver.exe

Making [chromedriver.exe 93.0.4577.63] executable ...
[chromedriver.exe] is now ready for use!

I had re-run sbase chromedriver latest returns what would expect

sbase install chromedriver latest

*** chromedriver version for download = 94.0.4606.61 (Latest)

Downloading chromedriver_win32.zip from:
https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/94.0.4606.61/chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Download Complete!

Extracting ['chromedriver.exe'] from chromedriver_win32.zip ...
Unzip Complete!

The file [chromedriver.exe] was saved to:
~\venv\Lib\site-packages\seleniumbase\drivers/chromedriver.exe

Making [chromedriver.exe 94.0.4606.61] executable ...
[chromedriver.exe] is now ready for use!

and running test again still get same error. I am noticing during test execution it looks like it was not recognizing the webdriver installed by sbase (ie one installed under ~\venv\Lib\site-packages\seleniumbase\drivers\chromedriver.exe) and was overwriting the webdriver as the error message seems to indicate

Looking into this assuming the overwrite was happening in this section of code: https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/core/browser_launcher.py#L1538 was failing and trying to auto upgrade. with this noticed when I change https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/core/browser_launcher.py#L1537 from driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options) to driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=LOCAL_CHROMEDRIVER,options=chrome_options) test and everything start to work again on my windows computer.

Also FYI, we have seleniumbase running on linux servers and re-running our tests (which goes through whole installation process) not seeing this issue pop up. so dont know if this is just windows issue (or more likely a me issue). in either case didnt know if had any insight or seen similar issues brought up by others before and how would fix

[mdmintz]

Hello @ksdaftari, thanks for reporting this. I suspect this is a Windows-specific issue where it doesn't recognize the seleniumbase/drivers/ directory as part of the PATH after line 28:
os.environ["PATH"] = DRIVER_DIR + os.pathsep + os.environ["PATH"]

I'll take the fix you had and modify it slightly so that Chrome-launching becomes the following: (It preserves the ability to use a preexisting Chromedriver that may already be on the System PATH.)

if not headless or "linux" not in PLATFORM:
    try:
        if os.path.exists(LOCAL_CHROMEDRIVER):
            driver = webdriver.Chrome(
                executable_path=LOCAL_CHROMEDRIVER,
                options=chrome_options
            )
        else:
            driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
    except Exception as e:
        ...

In most cases the LOCAL_CHROMEDRIVER from seleniumbase/drivers is good enough, but there's this tool you may have heard of called "Selenium-Grid", which must be located on the System PATH to work, and having Chromedriver be on the System Path allows both SeleniumBase and Selenium-Grid to be able to use the same driver (for people who also use Selenium-Grid, which is optional). I'll add this fix to the next version of SeleniumBase. Thank you for finding it!

[mdmintz]

This issue has been resolved by https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/releases/tag/v1.66.11

[ksdaftari]

just as additional test on your change, uninstalled and reinstalled new version (1.66.11) everything working, thank for quick fix on this!