Selenium gives "selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary" on Mac
Question:
Trying to get selenium to work with Python 3 for web scraping purposes:
from selenium import webdriver
chrome_path = r"/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/chromedriver"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_path)
I get the following error message:
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary
A similar question was addressed here, but what is baffling to me is that Chrome is already installed on my system. The other asker apparently didn’t have it on their computer. I’m running latest version of Mac OS.
Answers:
The issue is that chromedriver also needs to know where chrome is. In your case it is at a non-default path. So you need to specify the complete path to the Google Chrome binary.
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"
chrome_driver_binary = "/usr/local/bin/chromedriver"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_binary, chrome_options=options)
Above code is what you should use
If your chromedriver is located within /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/ directory the following code block should be working for you:
from selenium import webdriver
chrome_path = r'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/chromedriver'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chrome_path)
driver.get('https://www.google.co.in')
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = r"<YOUR_CHROME_PATH>chrome.exe"
chrome_driver_path = r"<PATH_TO_CHROME_DRIVER>chromedriver.exe>"
browser = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_path, chrome_options=options)
I have met this annoying problem when I am lerning selenium.
This is my solution: (MacOS 10.13.4)
- uninstall my chrome
- use homebrew to install chromedriver:
brew cask install chromedriver
- use homebrew to install chrome:
brew cask install google-chrome
Thanks to homebrew now chrome and chromedriver are installed in the same folder and this problem will be automatically solved.
If anyone is getting the same error on a linux machine, then you are missing google chrome installation as one of the steps needed for chrome driver to work.
Follow this link to install Google chrome on Linux.
Now, check code
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='/usr/bin/chromedriver', options=chrome_options, service_args=['--verbose', '--log-path=/tmp/chromedriver.log'])
For me it worked.
It is important on Win to set the name of chrome.exe otherwise it fail to create a process (see below):
from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = r"C:Program Files (x86)GoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe"
chrome_driver_binary = r"C:/Users/Max/.wdm/chromedriver/75.0.3770.8/win32/chromedriver.exe"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_binary, chrome_options=options)
driver.get('http://web.whatsapp.com')
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: Failed to create a Chrome process.
For Firefox (download driver https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases):
options = webdriver.FirefoxOptions()
#options.add_argument('-headless')
#options.binary_location = r"C:maxbookmaxboxpythongeckodriver-v0.24.0-win64geckodriver.exe"
options.binary_location = r"C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe"
firefox_driver_binary = r"C:maxbookmaxboxpythongeckodriver-v0.24.0-win64\"
driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_driver_binary, options=options)
In my case, I install the Chrome browser then it’s not throwing an error.
This article gives the full breakdown on what is happening. Installing the latest web driver should fix the problem rather than changing the code.
Basically version 85 of chrome was installed in a different location, however this only affected new installations so it wasn’t noticeable for most people.
The latest web driver understands about the new location so getting an updated driver is the easiest solution – that is of course unless you specifically need to test an older version.
all you need is download latest version of chrome and chromedriver and install
it
I recently solved this issue by simply downloading the Chrome Browser. Download it and to download latest version of chrome driver by using this code
from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())
Trying to get selenium to work with Python 3 for web scraping purposes:
from selenium import webdriver
chrome_path = r"/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/chromedriver"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_path)
I get the following error message:
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary
A similar question was addressed here, but what is baffling to me is that Chrome is already installed on my system. The other asker apparently didn’t have it on their computer. I’m running latest version of Mac OS.
The issue is that chromedriver also needs to know where chrome is. In your case it is at a non-default path. So you need to specify the complete path to the Google Chrome binary.
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"
chrome_driver_binary = "/usr/local/bin/chromedriver"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_binary, chrome_options=options)
Above code is what you should use
If your chromedriver is located within /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/ directory the following code block should be working for you:
from selenium import webdriver
chrome_path = r'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/chromedriver'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chrome_path)
driver.get('https://www.google.co.in')
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = r"<YOUR_CHROME_PATH>chrome.exe"
chrome_driver_path = r"<PATH_TO_CHROME_DRIVER>chromedriver.exe>"
browser = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_path, chrome_options=options)
I have met this annoying problem when I am lerning selenium.
This is my solution: (MacOS 10.13.4)
- uninstall my chrome
- use homebrew to install chromedriver:
brew cask install chromedriver - use homebrew to install chrome:
brew cask install google-chrome
Thanks to homebrew now chrome and chromedriver are installed in the same folder and this problem will be automatically solved.
If anyone is getting the same error on a linux machine, then you are missing google chrome installation as one of the steps needed for chrome driver to work.
Follow this link to install Google chrome on Linux.
Now, check code
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='/usr/bin/chromedriver', options=chrome_options, service_args=['--verbose', '--log-path=/tmp/chromedriver.log'])
For me it worked.
It is important on Win to set the name of chrome.exe otherwise it fail to create a process (see below):
from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.binary_location = r"C:Program Files (x86)GoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe"
chrome_driver_binary = r"C:/Users/Max/.wdm/chromedriver/75.0.3770.8/win32/chromedriver.exe"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_binary, chrome_options=options)
driver.get('http://web.whatsapp.com')
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: Failed to create a Chrome process.
For Firefox (download driver https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases):
options = webdriver.FirefoxOptions()
#options.add_argument('-headless')
#options.binary_location = r"C:maxbookmaxboxpythongeckodriver-v0.24.0-win64geckodriver.exe"
options.binary_location = r"C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe"
firefox_driver_binary = r"C:maxbookmaxboxpythongeckodriver-v0.24.0-win64\"
driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_driver_binary, options=options)
In my case, I install the Chrome browser then it’s not throwing an error.
This article gives the full breakdown on what is happening. Installing the latest web driver should fix the problem rather than changing the code.
Basically version 85 of chrome was installed in a different location, however this only affected new installations so it wasn’t noticeable for most people.
The latest web driver understands about the new location so getting an updated driver is the easiest solution – that is of course unless you specifically need to test an older version.
all you need is download latest version of chrome and chromedriver and install
it
I recently solved this issue by simply downloading the Chrome Browser. Download it and to download latest version of chrome driver by using this code
from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())