Launching a webpage with Firefox using selenium

Question

I am currently reading Automate the Boring Stuff with Python and trying to learn how to use Selenium. For now, I am just trying to open a webpage and can't even get that to work. I know there are easier ways to launch a webpage with python, but my goal is to work with the webpage content later, so that is why I am using selenium.

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("http://www.python.org")

When I run this code, it does successfully launch Firefox but it does not open the web page I specified. This error is also returned.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/lbor/Desktop/se.py", line 2, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Firefox()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/webdriver.py", line 80, in __init__
    self.binary, timeout)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/extension_connection.py", line 52, in __init__
    self.binary.launch_browser(self.profile, timeout=timeout)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/firefox_binary.py", line 68, in launch_browser
    self._wait_until_connectable(timeout=timeout)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/firefox_binary.py", line 108, in _wait_until_connectable
    % (self.profile.path))
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Can't load the profile. Profile Dir: /var/folders/4c/gsw7v5b118j406zxj3lxctt40000gn/T/tmp_dgwff4s If you specified a log_file in the FirefoxBinary constructor, check it for details.

I don't understand what this problem is or how to go about fixing it. I am running OS 10.12.5, Python 3.6, Selenium 2.53.6, Firefox 53.0.3. As for the geckodriver, I don't know what that is or how to install it.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 05 '17 at 17:20

1

You can download geckodriver from here.

After that, you need to load it up, using:

geckodriver = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)) + "/geckodriver"

drv = webdriver.Firefox(geckodriver)

answered Jun 05 '17 at 17:20

Adeel Ahmad

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I just tried this, but it still just launches Firefox but not the desire webpage – Lmorj Jun 05 '17 at 17:25
Which geckodriver release did you download? – Adeel Ahmad Jun 05 '17 at 17:26
I am using v0.16.1. – Lmorj Jun 05 '17 at 17:30

Ajax1234 · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-05T17:29:18.477

You can install geckodriver here, by selecting the appropriate version for your computer:

https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases

Then, in your code, you pass the full path for the location of the geckodriver on your computer to the Firefox method:

browser = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path="/Users/username/Location/geckodriver")

browser.get("https://google.com") #this will load the the google homepage. 
#you can specify any page you want here.

Launching a webpage with Firefox using selenium

2 Answers2