Error message: "'chromedriver' executable needs to be available in the path"

Question

I am using selenium with python and have downloaded the chromedriver for my windows computer from this site: http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html?path=2.15/

After downloading the zip file, I unpacked the zip file to my downloads folder. Then I put the path to the executable binary (C:\Users\michael\Downloads\chromedriver_win32) into the Environment Variable "Path".

However, when I run the following code:

  from selenium import webdriver

  driver = webdriver.Chrome()

... I keep getting the following error message:

WebDriverException: Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be available in the path. Please look at     http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/#thirdPartyDrivers and read up at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver

But - as explained above - the executable is(!) in the path ... what is going on here?

Answer 1

I see the discussions still talk about the old way of setting up chromedriver by downloading the binary and configuring the path manually.

This can be done automatically using webdriver-manager

pip install webdriver-manager

Now the above code in the question will work simply with below change,

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())

The same can be used to set Firefox, Edge and ie binaries.

Answer 2

You can test if it actually is in the PATH, if you open a cmd and type in chromedriver (assuming your chromedriver executable is still named like this) and hit Enter. If Starting ChromeDriver 2.15.322448 is appearing, the PATH is set appropriately and there is something else going wrong.

Alternatively you can use a direct path to the chromedriver like this:

 driver = webdriver.Chrome('/path/to/chromedriver') 

So in your specific case:

 driver = webdriver.Chrome("C:/Users/michael/Downloads/chromedriver_win32/chromedriver.exe")

Answer 3

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt install chromium-chromedriver

On Debian:

sudo apt install chromium-driver

On macOS install Homebrew then do

brew install --cask chromedriver

Answer 4

For Linux and OSX

Step 1: Download chromedriver

# You can find more recent/older versions at http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/
# Also make sure to pick the right driver, based on your Operating System
wget http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/81.0.4044.69/chromedriver_mac64.zip

For debian: wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.41/chromedriver_linux64.zip

Step 2: Add chromedriver to /usr/local/bin

unzip chromedriver_mac64.zip
sudo mv chromedriver /usr/local/bin
sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/chromedriver
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/chromedriver

---

You should now be able to run

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('http://localhost:8000')

without any issues

Answer 5

Same situation with pycharm community edition, so, as for cmd, you must restart your ide in order to reload path variables. Restart your ide and it should be fine.

Answer 6

We have to add path string, begin with the letter r before the string, for raw string. I tested this way, and it works.

driver = webdriver.Chrome(r"C:/Users/michael/Downloads/chromedriver_win32/chromedriver.exe")

Answer 7

According to the instruction, you need to include the path to ChromeDriver when instantiating webdriver.Chrome eg.:

driver = webdriver.Chrome('/path/to/chromedriver')

Answer 8

Another way is download and unzip chromedriver and put 'chromedriver.exe' in C:\Program Files\Python38\Scripts and then you need not to provide the path of driver, just

driver= webdriver.Chrome()

Answer 9

Before you add the chromedriver to your path, make sure it's the same version as your browser.

If not, you will need to match versions: either update/downgrade you chrome, and upgrade/downgrade your webdriver.

I recommend updating your chrome version as much as possible, and the matching the webdriver.

To update chrome:

• On the top right corner, click on the three dots.
• click help -> About Google Chrome
• update the version and restart chrome

Then download the compatible version from here: http://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads .

Note: The newest chromedriver doesn't always match the newest version of chrome!

Now you can add it to the PATH:

1. create a new folder somewhere in your computer, where you will place your web drivers. I created a folder named webdrivers in C:\Program Files

2. copy the folder path. In my case it was C:\Program Files\webdrivers

3. right click on this PC -> properties:

4. On the right click Advanced System settings
5. Click Environment Variables
6. In System variables, click on path and click edit
7. click new
8. paste the path you copied before
9. click OK on all the windows

Thats it! I used pycharm and I had to reopen it. Maybe its the same with other IDEs or terminals.

Answer 10

Best way for sure is here:

Download and unzip chromedriver and put 'chromedriver.exe' in C:\Python27\Scripts and then you need not to provide the path of driver, just

driver= webdriver.Chrome()

You are done no need to add paths or anything

Answer 11

EXECUTABLE PATH HAS BEEN DEPRECATED!

if you get the exectuable_path ash been deprecated warning, here is the fix...

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
def test_me(my_name):
    s=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install())    
    chrome_driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=s)
    ...

Answer 12

Some additional input/clarification for future readers of this thread, to avoid tinkering with the PATH env. variable at the Windows level and restart of the Windows system: (copy of my answer from https://stackoverflow.com/a/49851498/9083077 as applicable to Chrome):

(1) Download chromedriver (as described in this thread earlier) and place the (unzipped) chromedriver.exe at X:\Folder\of\your\choice

(2) Python code sample:

import os;
os.environ["PATH"] += os.pathsep + r'X:\Folder\of\your\choice';

from selenium import webdriver;
browser = webdriver.Chrome();
browser.get('http://localhost:8000')
assert 'Django' in browser.title

Notes: (1) It may take about 5 seconds for the sample code (in the referenced answer) to open up the Firefox browser for the specified url. (2) The python console would show the following error if there's no server already running at the specified url or serving a page with the title containing the string 'Django': assert 'Django' in browser.title AssertionError

Answer 13

When you unzip chromedriver, please do specify an exact location so that you can trace it later. Below, you are getting the right chromedriver for your OS, and then unzipping it to an exact location, which could be provided as argument later on in your code.

wget http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.10/chromedriver_linux64.zip unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip -d /home/virtualenv/python2.7.9/

Answer 14

If you are working with robot framework RIDE. Then you can download Chromedriver.exe from its official website and keep this .exe file in C:\Python27\Scripts directory. Now mention this path as your environment variable eg. C:\Python27\Scripts\chromedriver.exe.

Restart your computer and run same test case again. You will not get this problem again.

Answer 15

As Aphid mentioned in his comment, if you want to do it manually, you have to include only the directory where your webdriver is stored, not the executable:

Example:

RIGHT:

PATH=$PATH:/path/to/webdriver/folder

WRONG:

PATH=$PATH:/path/to/webdriver/chromedriver.exe

---

Windows System Variable and CMD Test:

Answer 16

For those of you who are on Selenium v4.6.0 or above:

We don't have to worry about downloading and setting the path of driver.exe any more. Nor we have to use third party library such as WebDriverManager to handle the browser drivers.

Selenium's new tool known as SeleniumManger can download/handle the browser drivers automatically for us.

Now your Python code can be as simple as:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://www.google.com")

References:

• https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors/driver_location/
• Introducing Selenium Manager

Answer 17

Could try to restart computer if it doesn't work after you are quite sure that PATH is set correctly.

In my case on windows 7, I always got the error on WebDriverException: Message: for chromedriver, gecodriver, IEDriverServer. I am pretty sure that i have correct path. Restart computer, all work

Answer 18

I encountered the same problem as yours. I'm using PyCharm to write programs, and I think the problem lies in environment setup in PyCharm rather than the OS. I solved the problem by going to script configuration and then editing the PATH in environment variables manually. Hope you find this helpful!

Answer 19

When I downloaded chromedriver.exe I just move it in PATH folder C:\Windows\System32\chromedriver.exe and had exact same problem.

For me solution was to just change folder in PATH, so I just moved it at Pycharm Community bin folder that was also in PATH. ex:

• C:\Windows\System32\chromedriver.exe --> Gave me exception
• C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2019.1.3\bin\chromedriver.exe --> worked fine

Answer 20

Had this issue with Mac Mojave running Robot test framework and Chrome 77. This solved the problem. Kudos @Navarasu for pointing me to the right track.

$ pip install webdriver-manager --user # install webdriver-manager lib for python
$ python # open python prompt

Next, in python prompt:

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())

# ctrl+d to exit

This leads to the following error:

Checking for mac64 chromedriver:xx.x.xxxx.xx in cache
There is no cached driver. Downloading new one...
Trying to download new driver from http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/xx.x.xxxx.xx/chromedriver_mac64.zip
...
TypeError: makedirs() got an unexpected keyword argument 'exist_ok'

• I now got the newest download link
  • Download and unzip chromedriver to where you want
  • For example: ~/chromedriver/chromedriver

Open ~/.bash_profile with editor and add:

export PATH="$HOME/chromedriver:$PATH"

Open new terminal window, ta-da

Answer 21

As of recent versions, the preferred way to create a chromedriver is to use a service.

Manually set your path like this:

chromedriver_path = "path to your chromedriver executable>"

service = Service(chromedriver_path)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service)

Answer 22

In my case, this error disappears when I have copied chromedriver file to c:\Windows folder. Its because windows directory is in the path which python script check for chromedriver availability.

Answer 23

If you are using remote interpreter you have to also check if its executable PATH is defined. In my case switching from remote Docker interpreter to local interpreter solved the problem.

Answer 24

Check the path of your chrome driver, it might not get it from there. Simply Copy paste the driver location into the code.

Answer 25

Add the webdriver(chromedriver.exe or geckodriver.exe) here C:\Windows. This worked in my case

Answer 26

The best way is maybe to get the current directory and append the remaining address to it. Like this code(Word on windows. On linux you can use something line pwd): webdriveraddress = str(os.popen("cd").read().replace("\n", ''))+'\path\to\webdriver'

Answer 27

I had this problem on Webdriver 3.8.0 (Chrome 73.0.3683.103 and ChromeDriver 73.0.3683.68). The problem disappeared after I did

pip install -U selenium

to upgrade Webdriver to 3.14.1.

Answer 28

The simple solution is that download the chrome driver and move the executable file to the folder from which you run the python file.

Answer 29

After testing to check that ChromeDriver is installed

chromedriver

You should see

Starting ChromeDriver version.number 
ChromeDriver was successful

Check the path of the ChromeDriver path

which chromedriver

Use the Path in your code

...
from selenium import webdriver

options = Options()
options.headless = True
options.add_argument('windows-size=1920x1080')

path   = '/usr/local/bin/chromedriver'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(path, options=options)

Answer 30

pip install webdriver-manager

If you run script by using python3:

pip3 install webdriver-manager

• Then in script please use:

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())

Answer 31

For mac osx users

    brew tap homebrew/cask
    brew cask install chromedriver

Answer 32

Test that the filter correctly excludes data that does not meet the specified criteria. Test that the filter correctly includes data that meets the specified criteria. Test that the filter does not exclude any data that should be included. Test that the filter does not include any data that should be excluded. Test that the filter handles null or missing data appropriately. Test that the filter handles large data sets efficiently. Test that the filter can be configured with different combinations of criteria. Test that the filter returns consistent results across multiple runs. Test that the filter can be easily modified or updated without introducing errors. Test that the filter integrates properly with other business processes or applications.

Answer 33

For MAC users:

1. Download Chromedriver: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/downloads

2.In Terminal type "sudo nano /etc/paths"

3.Add line with path to Cromedriver as example: "/Users/username/Downloads"

4. Try to run your test again!

Answer 34

(for Mac users) I have the same problem but i solved by this simple way: You have to put your chromedriver.exe in the same folder to your executed script and than in pyhton write this instruction :

import os

os.environ["PATH"] += os.pathsep + r'X:/your/folder/script/'