org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: chrome not reachable - when attempting to start a new session

Question

When I run my tests on Chrome I often get a WebdriverException that Chrome is not reachable. It doesn\'t happen every time. Maybe once every 15 times. I am having to run eve

Answer 1

The error does gives us some hint as follows :

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: chrome not reachable

Which essentially implies that chromedriver binary is unable to spawn a new Chrome Browser process.

Your main issue is the version compatibility among the binaries you are using as follows :

• You are using chromedriver=2.35.528161 (released 2018-01-10)
• Release Notes of chromedriver=2.35 clearly mentions the following :

Supports Chrome v62-64

• You mentioned of using latest Chrome. I suppose it is chrome=65.x
• You are using Selenium Version 2.52.0 (released 2016-02-11 11:22:43) [as per the error stack trace within your question]

So the time gap between the release of Selenium Version 2.52.0 and chromedriver=2.35.528161 is almost 2 Years and are not compatible. Hence ChromeDriver is unable to spawn the new Chrome Browser process at times.

Solution

• Keep the ChromeDriver at v2.35 level.
• Downgrade Chrome to stable Chrome v64.x levels. (as per ChromeDriver v2.35 release notes)
• Upgrade Selenium to current levels Version 3.8.1.
• Execute your Test.