[🐛 Bug]: Failed to build driver for chrome [🐛 Bug]:

[ADAS-Ash]

What happened?

Code created in Selenium IDE. Trying to use locally using command line after installing node, npm, selenium-side-runner and chrome driver.

C:\Users\Ash\Downloads\0201Parking>npm install node

added 2 packages, and audited 20 packages in 22s

1 package is looking for funding
run npm fund for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

C:\Users\Ash\Downloads\0201Parking>npm install -g selenium-side-runner
npm warn deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported, and leaks memory. Do not use it. Check out lru-cache if you want a good and tested way to coalesce async requests by a key value, which is much more comprehensive and powerful.
npm warn deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm warn deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm warn deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm warn deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported

changed 370 packages in 31s

45 packages are looking for funding
run npm fund for details

C:\Users\Ash\Downloads\0201Parking>npm install -g chromedriver

changed 60 packages in 7s

2 packages are looking for funding
run npm fund for details

C:\Users\Ash\Downloads\0201Parking>selenium-side-runner -X C:\Users\Ash\Downloads\0201Parking\0201StParking.side
console.log
Beginning test session

  at Object.<anonymous>.exports.default (src/connect.ts:9:11)

console.info
Building driver for chrome

  at WebDriverExecutor.getDriverSync (node_modules/@seleniumhq/side-runtime/src/webdriver.ts:172:14)

console.info
Driver attributes:{ capabilities: {}, server: '', browserName: 'chrome' }

  at WebDriverExecutor.getDriverSync (node_modules/@seleniumhq/side-runtime/src/webdriver.ts:173:14)

console.error

          Failed to build driver for chrome
          Supplied capabilities: {}
          Server: none
          Error: Error: Driver took too long to build. This is likely an issue with the browser or driver.

          OS: win32
          Node: v22.13.0
          Selenium-Webdriver: 4.28.1

          This is breaking at the boundary of the following code in selenium-webdriver:

          // BEGIN SELENIUM-WEBDRIVER CODE
          const webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver')
          const driver = new webdriver.Builder().withCapabilities({}).forBrowser('chrome').build()
          // END SELENIUM-WEBDRIVER CODE

          To ensure the bug is in selenium IDE, please attempt to run the above code in a script or node REPL.
          You may have to npm install selenium-webdriver first.

          If you are unable to proceed further, please raise a bug here:
          https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/issues/new?assignees=&labels=I-defect%2Cneeds-triaging&projects=&template=bug-report.yml&title=%5B%F0%9F%90%9B+Bug%5D%3A+

          If this code works in selenium-webdriver, but not the IDE or side-runner, please raise a bug here:
          https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium-ide/issues/new?assignees=&labels=&projects=&template=bug.md


  at WebDriverExecutor.getDriver (node_modules/@seleniumhq/side-runtime/src/webdriver.ts:216:17)
  at WebDriverExecutor.init (node_modules/@seleniumhq/side-runtime/src/webdriver.ts:259:21)
  at Object.<anonymous>.exports.default (src/connect.ts:10:3)
  at Object.<anonymous> (src/main.test.ts:130:5)

FAIL ../../AppData/Roaming/npm/node_modules/selenium-side-runner/dist/main.test.js (30.881 s)
× Testing driver connection (30061 ms)

● Testing driver connection

Driver took too long to build. This is likely an issue with the browser or driver.

  at Timeout._onTimeout (node_modules/@seleniumhq/side-runtime/src/webdriver.ts:200:13)

Test Suites: 1 failed, 1 total
Tests: 1 failed, 1 total
Snapshots: 0 total
Time: 30.97 s, estimated 31 s
Ran all test suites within paths "C:\Users\Ash\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\selenium-side-runner\dist\main.test.js".

How can we reproduce the issue?

{
  "id": "686fe98e-4742-4a9e-b56d-502dce5e376d",
  "version": "2.0",
  "name": "StParking",
  "url": "https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/book/",
  "tests": [{
    "id": "39b24ef5-b610-4ae3-aa1f-f32311bb1956",
    "name": "TestCase-ID",
    "commands": [{
      "id": "3488758d-dfc3-4cf2-8535-537663667d5a",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "open",
      "target": "Santander/Parking",
      "targets": [],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "ef5290a3-7d20-49cb-8379-114c95f2fb9a",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "setWindowSize",
      "target": "874x1032",
      "targets": [],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "77f19c52-a0c8-41e6-ba1e-b3b9dbb01672",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "id=changeEntryDate",
      "targets": [
        ["id=changeEntryDate", "id"],
        ["name=entryDate", "name"],
        ["css=#changeEntryDate", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='changeEntryDate']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='editEntryDate']/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "858884f4-291e-41a8-b2d3-fb40fb8dace8",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "css=tr:nth-child(2) > .day:nth-child(1)",
      "targets": [
        ["css=tr:nth-child(4) > .day:nth-child(3)", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//tr[4]/td[3]", "xpath:position"],
        ["xpath=//td[contains(.,'21')]", "xpath:innerText"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "f4f9c5e1-8632-42db-ba9d-0b5ea0489493",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "select",
      "target": "id=changeEntryTime",
      "targets": [],
      "value": "06:00"
    }, {
      "id": "11625a4d-62c0-4ea1-9812-bf04c1727560",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "id=changeExitDate",
      "targets": [
        ["id=changeEntryDate", "id"],
        ["name=entryDate", "name"],
        ["css=#changeEntryDate", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='changeEntryDate']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='editEntryDate']/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "b3a80ddb-ed9b-4516-97b9-2ebe72dea1b6",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "css=tr:nth-child(2) > .day:nth-child(1)",
      "targets": [
        ["css=tr:nth-child(4) > .day:nth-child(2)", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//tr[4]/td[2]", "xpath:position"],
        ["xpath=//td[contains(.,'20')]", "xpath:innerText"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "4064f78e-4068-4837-9fbf-407ba95dbea4",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "select",
      "target": "id=changeExitTime",
      "targets": [],
      "value": "label=12:30"
    }, {
      "id": "c7bb3269-9fd8-4144-b02f-4eaa17b158a2",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "css=.btn-desktop",
      "targets": [
        ["css=.btn-desktop", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@value='Book now']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//form[@id='changeDate']/div[3]/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div[3]/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "940152be-319d-4d62-9964-5bff76d58349",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "xpath=//a[contains(@href, '?parkingCmd=selectProduct&cmd=selectProduct&selectProductSubmitted=1&pid=413')]",
      "targets": [
        ["linkText=Book now", "linkText"],
        ["css=.container:nth-child(1) .product-group__item-container:nth-child(1) .btn:nth-child(1)", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//a[contains(text(),'Book now')]", "xpath:link"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='gridProducts']/div/div/div/div/div/div[3]/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/a", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//a[contains(@href, '?parkingCmd=selectProduct&cmd=selectProduct&selectProductSubmitted=1&pid=413')]", "xpath:href"],
        ["xpath=//div[3]/a", "xpath:position"],
        ["xpath=//a[contains(.,'Book now')]", "xpath:innerText"]
      ],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "1285619a-7237-49fb-a2c4-bef37d1d2942",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "//click",
      "target": "linkText=Book now",
      "targets": [],
      "value": ""
    }, {
      "id": "3473cc73-ca04-4a57-ad19-05ac649d350b",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "type",
      "target": "id=firstName",
      "targets": [
        ["id=firstName", "id"],
        ["name=fname", "name"],
        ["css=#firstName", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='firstName']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='personalDetails']/div[2]/div/div/div/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div[2]/div/div/div/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": "Firstname"
    }, {
      "id": "cac7e2d2-fb9a-40c3-a3df-348a6553b597",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "type",
      "target": "id=lastName",
      "targets": [
        ["id=lastName", "id"],
        ["name=lname", "name"],
        ["css=#lastName", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='lastName']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='personalDetails']/div[2]/div/div/div[2]/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div[2]/div/div/div[2]/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": "Surname"
    }, {
      "id": "527d9cb6-e8b9-490f-87f6-0a8a0fdd214c",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "type",
      "target": "id=email",
      "targets": [
        ["id=email", "id"],
        ["name=email", "name"],
        ["css=#email", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='email']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='personalDetails']/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div[2]/div/div[2]/div/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": "test@santander.co.uk"
    }, {
      "id": "35f72cb7-9797-44e2-92a8-01bfc16632b5",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "type",
      "target": "id=registration",
      "targets": [
        ["id=registration", "id"],
        ["name=carreg", "name"],
        ["css=#registration", "css:finder"],
        ["xpath=//input[@id='registration']", "xpath:attributes"],
        ["xpath=//div[@id='vehicleDetails']/div[2]/div/div[2]/input", "xpath:idRelative"],
        ["xpath=//div[2]/div/div[2]/input", "xpath:position"]
      ],
      "value": "AA11ZXY"
    }, {
      "id": "37c4ac8f-5aa9-4067-8da1-3c1ec2b1f5c9",
      "comment": "",
      "command": "click",
      "target": "id=terms",
      "targets": [],
      "value": ""
    }]
  }],
  "suites": [{
    "id": "8e2c97af-307e-438a-bbcb-90f146fddd04",
    "name": "Default Suite",
    "persistSession": false,
    "parallel": false,
    "timeout": 300,
    "tests": ["39b24ef5-b610-4ae3-aa1f-f32311bb1956"]
  }],
  "urls": ["https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/", "https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/book/Santander/Parking?parkingCmd=selectProduct", "https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/book/Santander/Parking?parkingCmd=collectParkingDetails", "https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/book/Santander/Parking", "https://unityplace.aeroparker.com/book/"],
  "plugins": []
}

Relevant log output

Failed to build driver for chrome
              Supplied capabilities: {}
              Server: none
              Error: Error: Driver took too long to build. This is likely an issue with the browser or driver.

              OS: win32
              Node: v22.13.0
              Selenium-Webdriver: 4.28.1

              This is breaking at the boundary of the following code in selenium-webdriver:

              // BEGIN SELENIUM-WEBDRIVER CODE
              const webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver')
              const driver = new webdriver.Builder().withCapabilities({}).forBrowser('chrome').build()
              // END SELENIUM-WEBDRIVER CODE

              To ensure the bug is in selenium IDE, please attempt to run the above code in a script or node REPL.
              You may have to npm install selenium-webdriver first.

Operating System

Windows 11 Pro

Selenium version

Selenium IDE Latest

What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

Chrome Version 132.0.6834.84 (Official Build) (64-bit)

What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

132.0.6834.159 (2d77d3fc4452661469b78f115e0aed4d71269739-refs/branch-heads/6834@{#4408})

Are you using Selenium Grid?

No

[github-actions]

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

---

Info for maintainers

Triage this issue by using labels.

If information is missing, add a helpful comment and then I-issue-template label.

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If the issue is valid but there is no time to troubleshoot it, consider adding the help wanted label.

If the issue requires changes or fixes from an external project (e.g., ChromeDriver, GeckoDriver, MSEdgeDriver, W3C), add the applicable G-* label, and it will provide the correct link and auto-close the issue.

After troubleshooting the issue, please add the R-awaiting answer label.

Thank you!

[kool79]

We have a similar issue with chrome/chromedriver on mac arm64 (java). WebDriverManager takes too long time to load the browser. Webdriver v4.26
It started to reproduce few days ago. We did not change anything in dependencies. Browser startup takes about 5min 30sec.

[dtopuzov]

Experiencing the same as @kool79 with nodejs and v4.27.0
I am using macOS with Parallels and my Windows is arm64.

In se-metadata file I have:

{
  "browsers": [],
  "drivers": [
    {
      "major_browser_version": "132",
      "driver_name": "chromedriver",
      "driver_version": "132.0.6834.159",
      "driver_ttl": 1739117400
    }
  ],
  "stats": [
    {
      "browser": "chrome",
      "browser_version": "",
      "os": "windows",
      "arch": "arm64",
      "lang": "javascript",
      "selenium_version": "4.27",
      "stats_ttl": 1739117400
    }
  ]
}

and no driver is downloaded at .cache folder.

I see no arm64 driver for Windows, so I wonder how it worked before:
https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/#stable

Workaround:

npm i -g chromedriver

then add the path where chromedriver.exe is located to the PATH.

[kool79]

Currently, it works fine for me.
Today when I started tests first time, I still had a delay. But after one more start, there is no delay occurred. I assume there were some network issues with browsers/drivers availability. (this issue was reproduced with my colleague too, which is located in a different country)

BUT
my ~/.cache/selenium folder contains files and browsers, which I did NOT request from my test. I have a configuration for chrome only. But in the cache I've found:

1. firefox browser (+430MByte) with geckodriver (+5MByte)
2. Microsoft Edge (+900MByte) with msEdge driver (16MByte)
   In total: ~1.5 GByte of data which I'll never use.

I don't have 1G internet connection and don't want to waste my time and disk space to download and store those extra files, which I'll never use. Is it possible to skip download them?

[kool79]

Ups... it did it again

When I try to clear the cache folder, I got the same behavior ((
I've found that manager tries to found geckodriver and to do that, it invokes
seleniumManager.getBinaryPaths() with arguments "--browser", "firefox",...
when I try to run this from console with additional arguments:

./selenium-manager --browser firefox --language-binding java --output json --debug

then my console stuck for 5.5 min and then I have the output:

oleksandrkukychok@OKULYCHOK-NBpro 0.4.26 % ./selenium-manager --browser firefox --language-binding java --output json --debug
{   
  "logs": [
    {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "timestamp": 1739159209,
      "message": "geckodriver not found in PATH"
    },
    {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "timestamp": 1739159209,
      "message": "firefox not found in PATH"
    },
    {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "timestamp": 1739159209,
      "message": "firefox not found in the system"
    },
    {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "timestamp": 1739159209,
      "message": "Required browser: firefox 135.0"
    },
    {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "timestamp": 1739159209,
      "message": "Downloading firefox 135.0 from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/135.0/mac/en-US/Firefox%20135.0.pkg"
    },
    {
      "level": "ERROR",
      "timestamp": 1739159509,
      "message": "error decoding response body\n\nCaused by:\n    0: request or response body error\n    1: operation timed out"
    }
  ],
  "result": {
    "code": 65,
    "message": "error decoding response body\n\nCaused by:\n    0: request or response body error\n    1: operation timed out",
    "driver_path": "",
    "browser_path": ""
  }
}%                                                                           

I've tried to download the url "https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/135.0/mac/en-US/Firefox%20135.0.pkg" from browser and found, that server has a low download speed. It takes about 5 min to download the file with size 160MByte (I have >100MBit/s connection)

So there are 2 issues here:

1. DriverFinder must not download browsers/drivers, which are not requested by tests. Because it breaks test execution in case of ANY network issues with a dependencies, which are not used by tests.
2. Driver manager does not provide enouth information about download progress. While I provides the --debug switch, I dont have information, that download was actually started, but did not finish in time.

[kool79]

Because I use java binding, and current issue was created for js binding and has non-descriptive topic for my current rootcause, I created another ticket: #15261. Here I described a workaround which I tested on java bindings v4.26.
@dtopuzov Try to use the workaround, provided here.

[diemol]

I will close this because we are not troubleshooting IDE issues at the moment, no one is maintaining it and we are looking for volunteers. If this still happens, please open an issue in the IDE repo.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity since it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.