Could not instantiate new WebDriver instance of type class (gecko on Windows 10)

[aybartsch]

Dear Serenity Team,

in the last days I've updated our serenity cucumber test framework to latest version 3.2.0 which also supports selenium 4.1.2 version. I'm using a custom driver which loads the corresponding webdriver via webdriver manager. Chrome and edge are working well but gecko driver is only starting on MacOS but not on Windows:

MacOS:

[main] INFO  WebDriverManager: Using geckodriver 0.30.0 (resolved driver for Firefox 97)
[main] INFO  WebDriverManager: Exporting webdriver.gecko.driver as /Users/abartsch/.cache/selenium/geckodriver/mac64/0.30.0/geckodriver
[main] INFO  CustomDriver: WebDriver URL is not defined. Assuming local execution. Using driver type: FIREFOX

Windows:

[main] INFO  WebDriverManager: Using geckodriver 0.30.0 (resolved driver for Firefox 97)
[main] INFO  WebDriverManager: Exporting webdriver.gecko.driver as C:\Users\andre.bartsch\.cache\selenium\geckodriver\win64\0.30.0\geckodriver.exe
[main] INFO  CustomDriver: WebDriver URL is not defined. Assuming local execution. Using driver type: FIREFOX
[main] INFO  : STEP ERROR: net.thucydides.core.webdriver.DriverConfigurationError: Could not instantiate new WebDriver instance of type class net.thucydides.core.webdriver.ProvidedDriver (Could not instantiate the custom webdriver provider of type custom-driver). See below for more details.

Unfortunately, I don't have further details so far even when running in debug mode. Do you have any idea what could be the reason for this exception on Windows system?

Best regards, André.

[wakaleo]

If you are using a custom driver you have total control - debug and see what it is doing. But why do you need a custom driver for that?

[aybartsch]

Hi @wakaleo, I'm using the custom driver to set some important parameters for chrome and edge like:

• window-size
• disable-gpu
• log-level
• headless
• silent

Plus some experimental settings for chrome and edge like:

• credentials_enable_service
• profile.password_manager_enabled
• excludeSwitches: enable-automation

For the gecko driver I'm mainly interested to control the size.

If there is a better serenity way with @Managed please tell me.

But I have heard that gecko driver could have an issue on windows platforms with the driver path.

[wakaleo]

You almost never need to use a custom driver, and it prevents a number of Serenity optimisations. You can configure most chrome options via chrome.switches (see https://serenity-bdd.github.io/theserenitybook/latest/web-testing-in-serenity.html#_configuring_chrome for how to configure chrome). You can also use the standard W3C properties by configuring a webdriver section in the serenity.conf file, e.g.

    webdriver {
      driver = chrome
      base.url = "https://bdd-flyer.herokuapp.com"

      # W3C Capabilities
      screenResolution = "1280x1024"
      strictFileInteractability = true
      unhandledPromptBehavior = "ignore"

      timeouts {
        script = 20000
        pageLoad = 400000,
        implicit = 1000
      }
    }

I rarely use Firefox locally as I have found it unstable and unreliable in the more recent versions.

[aybartsch]

That sounds promising! Unfortunately, our customer is making use of firefox and I have to take the gecko driver testing into account.

Out of curiosity: What kind of optimisations you are talking about?

[wakaleo]

Pretty much any configuration you specify in the serenity.conf file will not work for custom drivers.

[aybartsch]

One final question if you allow: What could be the main reason for "Could not instantiate new WebDriver instance"?

[wakaleo]

That's just a wrapper for a Selenium failure, so it can mean anything.

[aybartsch]

Thanks, John! Have a nice week.

[aybartsch]

@wakaleo Hi John, following your suggestion I'm planning to replace our custom driver implementation by the common serenity implementation. You were pointing me to the serenity docs which are a nice entry point to serenity framework. I found some interesting hints on how to define driver settings. But how would you switch between e.g. FirefoxDriver and RemoteWebDriver? Thanks and best regards, André