[🐛 Bug]: Incorrect warning about mismatched browser/driver version

[jasonkarns]

Description

Trying to run capybara with chrome and chromedriver on CircleCI.

circleci ruby image:

build-essential 12.9ubuntu3, bundler 4.0.8, curl 7.81.0, docker 28.1.1, docker-compose Docker Compose version v2.27.1 v2.27.1, dockerize v0.8.0, gem 4.0.8, git 2.53.0, java 11.0.30, jq 1.6, node 24.14.0, ruby 3.4.9, selenium 3.141.59, ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, wget 1.21.2, yarn 1.22.22

The warning message we get:

2026-05-19 08:35:05 WARN Selenium [:selenium_manager] Exception managing chrome: Wrong browser/driver version 
2026-05-19 08:35:05 WARN Selenium [:selenium_manager] The chromedriver version (148.0.7778.167) detected in PATH at /usr/local/bin/chromedriver might not be compatible with the detected chrome version (3.4.9); currently, chromedriver  is recommended for chrome 3.*, so it is advised to delete the driver in PATH and retry 

The version 3.4.9 makes no sense. Our initial setup used the circleci ruby image (ubuntu 22) that includes browsers, which included chrome 146. We then use circle's browsertools orb to install latest chrome with chromedriver.

That leaves us with chrome and chromedriver version 148.

(Confirmed with:

which -a google-chrome && google-chrome --version
/usr/bin/google-chrome
/bin/google-chrome
Google Chrome 148.0.7778.167 

We also tried using a non-browsers ruby image and just letting the orb install chrome/driver, which installs 148 of both.

We also tried using the -browsers ruby image and not replacing the version of chrome (just letting the chromedriver install match itself to existing chrome), which installed chromedriver 146.

In all cases, we continue to get this warning from selenium, with a version number that makes no sense.

The only thing that seems related is that we're using ruby 3.4.9. But why would selenium-webdriver be reporting that as the chrome version?

Reproducible Code

CircleCI Ruby image 3.4:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/ruby:3.4 # https://circleci.com/developer/images/image/cimg/ruby

Chrome+Chromedriver 148 installed by browser-tools orb:
      - browser-tools/install_chrome
      - browser-tools/install_chromedriver

which -a google-chrome && google-chrome --version
  /usr/bin/google-chrome
  /bin/google-chrome
  Google Chrome 148.0.7778.167 

selenium-webdriver ruby gem 4.44.0

driven by capybara (3.40.0) and rspec (3.13)

[selenium-ci]

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

Selenium Triage Team: remember to follow the Triage Guide

[cgoldberg]

selenium 3.141.59

You are using a version that is almost 8 years out of date and unsupported... but your logs mention selenium_manager which wasn't even available in that old release?

Please upgrade to the latest version of Selenium. If the problem persists, provide the code you are using.

[jasonkarns]

selenium 3.141.59

This is just in the base circleci image.

We're using the latest version of selenium-webdriver ruby gem 4.44.0

---

edit:

If it helps to clarify, the selenium that circle bakes into its images comes along with the -browsers variant of the image. This issue persists even when we don't use the -browsers variant.

[cgoldberg]

ok... that error message is coming from selenium manager (rust/src/lib.rs). I'll re-open this.