Chrome is being controlled by automated test software

Question

I am running automated tests in Chrome with Serenity BDD (Selenium).

I had to download a new ChromeDriver, because my tests could not run -> The test would open ChromeDriver but could not "Browse as user". When I googled the issue, they said I had to update ChromeDriver.

So I updated ChromeDriver to version 2.28 and I also updated the Chrome version to Version 57.0.2987.98.

But now - EVERY TIME I run my tests this annoying text comes up:

Chrome is being controlled by automated test software

And it asks me if I want to save password. (I can't add pictures because I don't have enough "points")

In the previous version, I had managed to block these 2 things by:

public class CustomChromeDriver implements DriverSource {

    @Override
    public WebDriver newDriver() {
        try {
            DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.chrome();
            Proxy proxy = new Proxy();
            String proxyServer = String.format("AProxyIDontWantToDisplay", System.getenv("proxy.username"), System.getenv("proxy.password"));
            proxy.setHttpProxy(proxyServer);
            capabilities.setCapability("proxy", proxy);
            ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
            options.addArguments(Arrays.asList("--no-sandbox","--ignore-certificate-errors","--homepage=about:blank","--no-first-run"));
            capabilities.setCapability(ChromeOptions.CAPABILITY, options);
            ChromeDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(capabilities);
            return driver;
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new Error(e);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public boolean takesScreenshots() {
        return true;
    }
}

I know there is this one (A link to same issue), but there are too many answers that don't work.

Anybody that knows how to remove that?

About the "controlled by automation" text pop up: is there an issue it's causing? I was messing with the chrome driver the other day and it didn't show up screenshots, etc, and wasn't causing any element interaction issues. — Aaron Davis, Mar 31 '17 at 14:30
No not really, i have some components under that pop up that wont be shown in screenshots when they are clicked. thats why :) — BobbyB, Mar 31 '17 at 15:12
@BobbyB did you try taking the screenshot and seeing if they were covered? Like I stated, I didn't see the popup in the screenshots I took the other day. — Aaron Davis, Mar 31 '17 at 17:43

score 39 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 31 '17 at 18:15

39

Add this to the options you pass to the driver:

options.addArguments("disable-infobars");

answered Mar 31 '17 at 18:15

jgode

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10

That answer was from over 3 years ago. Chrome might have changed the argument. [This might help](https://help.applitools.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007189411--Chrome-is-being-controlled-by-automated-test-software-notification) – jgode Dec 07 '20 at 16:08
don't work for me in JavaScript – Nabi K.A.Z. Apr 03 '22 at 20:22

Anuj Teotia · Answer 2 · 2019-12-13T17:48:34.677

32

Previously, passing the "disable-infobars” ChromeOption to the WebDriver prevented Chrome from displaying this notification. Recently, the "disable-infobars" option has been deprecated and no longer removes the notification. The current workaround for this is to pass in an option called "excludeSwitches" and then exclude the "enable_automation" switch.

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions(); 
options.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches", new String[]{"enable-automation"}); 
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

edited Dec 13 '19 at 17:48

answered Mar 31 '17 at 16:04

Anuj Teotia

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This solution does not stop the notification from being displayed when used in Java. Only `options.addArguments("disable-infobars");` works fine – Chandra Shekhar Apr 05 '17 at 15:12
1

To disable Notifications add this : options.addArguments("--disable-notifications"); – Anuj Teotia Apr 05 '17 at 15:21
1

While I agree that in nearly all cases it won't affect your testing, in my case it did, big time. The application I was trying to automate was not adjusting the screen drawing to the reduced real-estate when the info-bar was displayed and consequently critical elements that I needed to confirm as clickable were not because they were obscured by other elements. This is clearly a programming/design issue by the developers, but disabling the info-bars fixed my problem, the screen displayed correctly when they were gone. – Bill Hileman Apr 26 '19 at 14:52
5

disable-infobars is not supported anymore for the latest drivers (76.0). Check @Rajeev 's answer for java and my answer for C#. – JM217 Sep 04 '19 at 05:32
2

@BillHileman I have modified the answer with the latest working code – Anuj Teotia Dec 13 '19 at 17:50
Is there a way to disable the warning via cli flags? – Frank Fang Feb 12 '22 at 06:54

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 16 '20 at 10:50

11

"disable-info" switch is not supported anymore for the latest chromedrivers. (at least 76.0).
@Rajeev's answer works and here I write the counterpart for C#.

ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
chromeOptions.AddAdditionalCapability("useAutomationExtension", false);
chromeOptions.AddExcludedArgument("enable-automation");
Driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);

edited Mar 16 '20 at 10:50

Mallu Patil

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answered Sep 04 '19 at 05:34

JM217

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This is woked for me – Wang Liang Nov 12 '19 at 08:39
Hi @David Piao, I don't have any AddAdditionalOption method on ChromeOptions class, am I missing something? – XavierAM Jan 05 '20 at 11:35
Are you sure you are using C#/Selenium? – JM217 Jan 05 '20 at 15:03
1

if you don't have `AddAdditionalOption`, check for `AddAdditionalCapability` – Fidan Feb 07 '20 at 08:33
Thanks for the answer! It's very dissatisfying that there is no comprehensive resource for Chrome capabilities... – BVengerov May 07 '20 at 13:33

score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 13 '19 at 10:30

8

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.setExperimentalOption("useAutomationExtension", false);
options.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches",Collections.singletonList("enable-automation"));    
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

Use the above codes for latest Chrome drivers.

edited Aug 13 '19 at 10:30

Angel F Syrus

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answered Aug 13 '19 at 09:48

Rajeev

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score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 17 '21 at 16:01

Tried many of these suggested solutions, but none of them worked. OK, my code is in C#, so there might be some differences in the WebDriver implementations for different platforms.

Anyway, the solution that I got working was using the following options for Chrome when running on .NET.

var options = new ChromeOptions();
options.AddExcludedArguments("enable-automation");

On .NET there doesn't seem to be any setExperimentalOption() method on the ChromeOptions class.

Jan 2023 - This solution works great on my part. – Synth Sloth Jan 31 '23 at 06:19 — Synth Sloth, Jan 31 '23 at 06:19

cwnewhouse · Answer 6 · 2017-11-14T23:39:38.683

While the disable-infobars route will work, it will likely suppress the infobar in all cases (as suggested here), not just the case that the OP is referring to. This is overkill at best, and could lead to unexpected and inexplicable behavior in the future if you are not getting some important message.

I think it's better to leverage the provided enable-automation switch by disabling it in the excludeSwitches area of your config/setup while doing nothing with regards to disable-inforbars. The enable-automation switch's description:

Inform users that their browser is being controlled by an automated test.

For nightwatch.conf.js it would look something like this (and worked for me):

desiredCapabilities: {
  ...
  chromeOptions: {
    excludeSwitches: ['enable-automation'],
    ...
  }
}

This should only do what we are after: getting rid of that specific pesky message!

Edit [2017-11-14]: This is now causing an even more annoying Disable Developer Mode Extensions alert/warning. I've tried every relevant-looking flag/switch I could find that might help, but to no avail. I've filed a bug with Chromium, so we'll see and I'll try to swing back through here if I get a resolution.

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 24 '22 at 20:39

Works on 2022

remove Chrome is being controlled by automated test software in python

from selenium.webdriver.chrome.webdriver import WebDriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

chromeOptions = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chromeOptions.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches", ['enable-automation']);
URL = "https://google.com/"
driver.get(URL)

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 11 '19 at 11:02

"disable-infobars" flag has been deprecated, but you can avoid this message by adding the following:

ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
chromeOptions.setExperimentalOption("useAutomationExtension", false);
chromeOptions.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches",Collections.singletonList("enable-automation"));    
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 06 '17 at 09:37

2

May someone needs this for Capybara, Watir should be like this:

Capybara.register_driver :chrome do |app|
  $driver = Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, {:browser => :chrome, :args => [ "--disable-infobars" ]})
end

answered Apr 06 '17 at 09:37

Mesut GUNES

7,089
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score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 28 '18 at 18:11

Protractor solution:

I arrived here searching for a Protractor solution, if useful for anyone I found, with help from the above answers; with Protractor you can add Chrome specific options to the chromeOptions object, within the capabilities object in the protractor.config file, for example to use the disable-infobars option discussed above use the following:

capabilities: {
  'browserName': 'chrome',
  'chromeOptions': {
    'args': ['disable-infobars']
  }
},

To use the enable-automation also discussed above:

capabilities: {
  'browserName': 'chrome',
  'chromeOptions': {
    'excludeSwitches': ['enable-automation']
  }
}

disable-infobars is preferred in my circumstances.

Ashu · Answer 11 · 2021-06-16T16:59:42.737

It works for me, with this code I am able to disable Chrome is being controlled by automated test software as well as the Save password popup`

    Map<String, Object> prefs = new HashMap<String, Object>();
prefs.put("credentials_enable_service", false);

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches",Collections.singletonList("enable-automation"));
options.setExperimentalOption("prefs", prefs);

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options)

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 06 '17 at 06:29

Map<String, Object> prefs = new HashMap<String, Object>();
//To Turns off multiple download warning
prefs.put("profile.default_content_settings.popups", 0);

prefs.put( "profile.content_settings.pattern_pairs.*.multiple-automatic-downloads", 1 );

//Turns off download prompt
prefs.put("download.prompt_for_download", false);
                    prefs.put("credentials_enable_service", false);
//To Stop Save password propmts
prefs.put("password_manager_enabled", false);

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addArguments("chrome.switches","--disable-extensions");
//To Disable any browser notifications
options.addArguments("--disable-notifications");
//To disable yellow strip info bar which prompts info messages
options.addArguments("disable-infobars");

options.setExperimentalOption("prefs", prefs);
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "Chromedriver path");
options.addArguments("--test-type");
driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
Log.info("Chrome browser started");

score 0 · Answer 13 · edited Feb 28 '19 at 13:27

0

It works for me by using addArguments(array("disable-infobars"))

This is for facebook/php-webdriver

$options = new ChromeOptions();
$options->addArguments(array("disable-infobars"));
$capabilities = DesiredCapabilities::chrome();
$capabilities->setCapability(ChromeOptions::CAPABILITY, $options);
$this->driver = RemoteWebDriver::create('http://localhost:4444/wd/hub', $capabilities);

edited Feb 28 '19 at 13:27

undetected Selenium

183,867
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answered Aug 10 '17 at 03:54

Tree Go

1

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 11 '19 at 12:15

0

You may use this

options1.add_argument("--app=https://www.google.com.ph")

answered Sep 11 '19 at 12:15

JexAce

3
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score -1 · Answer 15 · answered May 19 '17 at 01:00

If anyone is using Rails 5.1+, which changed the testing structure a bit and Capybara is configured in this file now for system tests:

application_system_test_case.rb

You can add "args" in the options for driven_by like this:

driven_by :selenium, using: :chrome, screen_size: [1400, 1400], options: { args: ["--disable-infobars"] }

score -1 · Answer 16 · answered Jul 05 '18 at 09:29

public WebDriver SetupChromeDriver(){
        //Initialize Chrome Driver
        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
        Map<String, Object> prefs = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        prefs.put("safebrowsing.enabled", "true"); 
        options.setExperimentalOption("prefs", prefs); 
        options.addArguments("--disable-notifications");
        options.addArguments("--start-maximized");
        options.addArguments("disable-infobars");
        System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "E:/Importent Softwares/Chrome Driver/chromedriver_2.37.exe");
        driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
        return driver;
}

score -1 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 08 '21 at 03:46

It took a lot of fiddling but eventually I found a combination of flags that works in 2021!

This tells Chrome to ignore all SSL errors, disables the "Chrome is being controlled by automated test software" message and starts in full screen. Add it to the Target field of your shortcut:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --ignore-certificate-errors --test-type=webdriver --start-fullscreen

Chrome is being controlled by automated test software

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