How to use pip version with webdriver?

[lexmozli]

Hey guys,

So, I'm running Debian 11 on a 3GB VPS, I've managed to install and run successfully changedetection.io, however I need to use it with the WebDriver.

I did manage to install ChromeDriver but it seems that listening is on port 9515 while changedetection wants 4444

I have checked https://github.com/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io/wiki/Fetching-pages-with-WebDriver but this only covers docker and windows, there's no native use case.
Tried to patch something together from those notes but I can't seem to get it working.

I'd appreciate any guidance like I'm a 5 year old.

Thanks!

[alexbobes]

I have the same issue.
chromedriver port can be specified with --port=4444 option

[lexmozli]

I could not solve the issue with that, it seems that there's something missing from the setup.
By looking at the other guides, it seems that I need to install something from Selenium and declare some env variable? I have issues with that, maybe other parts of my setup as well.

That's why I'm asking for a full guide setup, so we rull out any mistakes.

[timelash]

I'm having the exact same issue. Using the right port but still getting an error when I try to select the webdriver option in the fetching tab.
I have tried to run chrome via Selenium server and headless with the same result.

[BrakeCo]

Hello,

i had the same problem.
But I finally got it working on the rpi4 (pip3) with the following steps (I'm a noob so probably not the right way):

1. Installing chromedriver and selenium in the terminal:

• sudo apt install chromium-chromedriver
• pip3 install selenium

2. Edit the file; 'content_fetcher.py' in the directory: '/home/pi/.local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/changedetectionio' :

• Search for this line: self.command_executor = os.getenv("WEBDRIVER_URL", 'http://browser-chrome:4444/wd/hub').strip('"')
• Change it into: self.command_executor = os.getenv("WEBDRIVER_URL", 'http://127.0.0.1:4444').strip('"')

3. Start chromedriver and changedetection.io in terminal:
   chromedriver --port=4444
changedetection.io -d /path/to/empty/data/dir -p 5000

Now its making a screenshot of the site.
But I only get a part of it not the whole page. And I'm looking at the cookie part.
I hope this helps you.

Greetings.

[dgtlmoon]

Don't edit the python, just "export WEBDRIVER_URL=http://..............."

or

WEBDRIVER_URL=http://127.0.0.1:4444 changedetection.io -d /path/to/empty/data/dir -p 5000

needs someone (not me all the time) updating the wiki page :)

[BrakeCo]

Haha that's much easier! I told you I'm a noob.
Thanks!

[ChristopherW]

Apologies for commenting on this old ticket but I found it via Google and it seemed relevant.

I just installed changedetection on an Alpine Linux 3.19 VM and realised there were no OpenRC service scripts, I was also having the problem with an environment variable not being inherited when the script ran.

As I wanted to run this headless, I cobbled together two init scripts (one for changedetection and one for chromedriver). I added the environment variable to the start_pre(), instead of invoking changedetection with the environment variable as a parameter. Same result a different way, I suppose.

Below are my (very jank) init scripts for reference; put them into /etc/init.d, then run rc-status add <filename> to enable them as services with the default runlevel. There's a kill -9 for changedetction because OpenRC attempts a normal SIGINT which doesn't work, you have to Ctrl-C twice when running it interactively to properly stop changedetection. (A Python quirk? The init script could possibly be better written using exec to perhaps handle graceful shutdown better, but I've not investigated this yet.)

As an aside, on Alpine Linux, once you're running a modern version of Python 3, apk defaults to managing Python3 packages, so if you attempt a normal pip3 install it complains. I installed with pip3 install changedetection.io --break-system-packages, throwing caution to the wind. Prior to this, I'd installed a webdriver (apk add chromium-chromedriver) and tested it ran on the command line.

Because my Alpine install was previously so old, changedetection wouldn't compile (missing wheels, old dependencies which refused to update due to conflicts, it was horrible). I first had to manually unfudge the ancient Python 2.7 install, remove some ancient packages still referred to in /etc/apk/world following these instructions, then I was able to upgrade Python 3 to a reasonably recent version and the pip3 install of changedetection worked perfectly.

Init scripts:

/etc/init.d/changedetection

#!/sbin/openrc-run

name="$RC_SVCNAME"
#command="/usr/sbin/$RC_SVCNAME"
command="changedetection.io"
command_args="-d /opt/changedetection/ -p 5000"
pidfile="/run/$SVCNAME.pid"
command_background=true
output_log="/var/log/changedetection.log"
error_log="/var/log/changedetection.log"

start_pre() {
        export WEBDRIVER_URL="http://127.0.0.1:3333"
        export CHROME_BIN="/usr/bin/chromium-browser"
        export CHROME_PATH="/usr/lib/chromium/"
}

stop() {
if
    ! start-stop-daemon --test --quiet --stop --pidfile ${pidfile}; then
        rm -f ${pidfile}
        exit 0
    else
        start-stop-daemon --stop --retry TERM/5/KILL/10 --pidfile /run/$SVCNAME.pid --exec $command
fi
}

stop_post() {
if [ -f /run/$SVCNAME.pid ]; then
        cat /run/$SVCNAME.pid | xargs kill -9
        rm /run/$SVCNAME.pid
else
        exit 0
fi
}

#depend() {
#       need chromedriver
#}

[dgtlmoon]

command_args="--port=4444"

also be careful that its ONLY binding to 127.0.0.1, can you check that?

yeah - would be cool to have a proper install package to make this a system service

[ChristopherW]

It's binding to 0.0.0.0 and I'm able to access the server on its LAN IP. I had to adjust the startup script as I found there were some other edge cases, it's hardly what I'd call 'robust' but it's improved a little.