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I'm trying to make a Selenium program to automatically download and upload some files.

Note that I am not doing this for testing but for trying to automate some tasks.

So here's my set_preference for the Firefox profile

profile.set_preference('browser.download.folderList', 2) # custom location
profile.set_preference('browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting', False)
profile.set_preference('browser.download.dir', '/home/jj/web')
profile.set_preference('browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk', 'application/json, text/plain, application/vnd.ms-excel, text/csv, text/comma-separated-values, application/octet-stream')
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.alwaysAsk.force", False);

Yet, I still see the dialog for download.

bad_coder
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foothill
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1 Answers1

5

The Selenium firefox webdriver runs the firefox browser GUI. When a download is invoked firefox will present a popup asking if you want to view the file or save the file. As far as I can tell this is a property of the browser and there is no way to disable this using the firefox preferences or by setting the firefox profile variables. The only way I could avoid the firefox download popup was to use Mechanize along with Selenium. I used Selenium to obtain the download link and then passed this link to Mechanize to perform the actual download. Mechanize is not associated with a GUI implementation and therefore does not present user interface popups.

This clip is in Python and is part of a class that will perform the download action.

  # These imports are required
  from selenium import webdriver
  import mechanize
  import time


  # Start the firefox browser using Selenium
  self.driver = webdriver.Firefox()

  # Load the download page using its URL.
  self.driver.get(self.dnldPageWithKey)
  time.sleep(3)

  # Find the download link and click it
  elem = self.driver.find_element_by_id("regular")
  dnldlink = elem.get_attribute("href")
  logfile.write("Download Link is: " + dnldlink)
  pos = dnldlink.rfind("/")
  dnldFilename = dnldlink[pos+1:]
  dnldFilename = "/home/<mydir>/Downloads/" + dnldFilename
  logfile.write("Download filename is: " + dnldFilename)

  #### Now Using Mechanize ####
  # Above, Selenium retrieved the download link. Because of Selenium's
  # firefox download issue: it presents a download dialog that requires
  # user input, Mechanize will be used to perform the download.

  # Setup the mechanize browser. The browser does not get displayed.
  # It is managed behind the scenes.
  br = mechanize.Browser()

  # Open the login page, the download requires a login
  resp = br.open(webpage.loginPage)

  # Select the form to use on this page. There is only one, it is the
  # login form.
  br.select_form(nr=0)

  # Fill in the login form fields and submit the form. 
  br.form['login_username'] = theUsername
  br.form['login_password'] = thePassword
  br.submit()

  # The page returned after the submit is a transition page with a link
  # to the welcome page. In a user interactive session the browser would
  # automtically switch us to the welcome page.
  # The first link on the transition page will take us to the welcome page.
  # This step may not be necessary, but it puts us where we should be after
  # logging in.
  br.follow_link(nr=0)

  # Now download the file
  br.retrieve(dnldlink, dnldFilename)

  # After the download, close the Mechanize browser; we are done.
  br.close()

This does work for me. I hope it helps. If there is an easier solution I would love to know it.

Rick Cupoli
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