How to kill the browser instance (chrome) that was opened by web driver previously

Question

I want to kill the browser instance (chrome) that was opened by web driver previously. How would I do that? In my code below, I intentionally didn't want to include quit() or close() as I want to leave the browser open. So every time I execute or run this program, I want to kill/close the previously opened browser and then start a new instance and leave it on. As a result, only one instance of browser should be open at a time. I am using Mac.

public static void main(String[] args){

    String website = "http://www.google.com";
    System.setProperty(".....");
    WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
    driver.get(website);

}

The behaviour atm is that everytime I execute this, chrome instance will just pile up. What is the best way to avoid this? I am not doing this for testing purpose. I'm doing this because I want to automate a task. Thanks.

Perhaps driver.Quit() in tear down step after each test? Do kill java process! This is not a good practice. Just read quick selenium tutorial with examples. — Zhivko.Kostadinov, May 04 '18 at 06:09
Possible duplicate of [Selenium : How to stop geckodriver process impacting PC memory, without calling driver.quit()?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47999568/selenium-how-to-stop-geckodriver-process-impacting-pc-memory-without-calling) — undetected Selenium, May 04 '18 at 06:13

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 04 '18 at 06:27

0

You can try out this code :

public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Automation\\chromedriver.exe");
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
        driver.get("https://www.google.com/");
        try{
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec("TASKKILL /F /IM chrome.exe");
        }
        catch(IOException io){
            System.out.println(io.getMessage());
        }
    }

Note : It will kill all instances of chrome that was previously opened along with the newly opened instance.

answered May 04 '18 at 06:27

cruisepandey

28,520
6
20
38

hi @cruisepandey, thanks for the reply. I tried it but I am getting this error: Cannot run program "TASKKILL": error=2, No such file or directory Any idea why file or directory is missing? – jumbo_siopao May 04 '18 at 09:26
which IDE you are using ? – cruisepandey May 04 '18 at 09:26
this error comes up when we do not have admin privileges. – cruisepandey May 04 '18 at 09:27
im using eclipse – jumbo_siopao May 04 '18 at 09:27
please re launch the eclipse with admin privileges. for that right click on icon and select run as admininstrator – cruisepandey May 04 '18 at 09:27
try it out ! and please accept the answer , if it works for you ! – cruisepandey May 04 '18 at 09:29
hi @cruisepandey thanks for the suggestion, sorry if I didn't get a chance to reply yesterday... I ran eclipse like this: sudo open Eclipse.app/ After that, I'm still getting the same error :/ – jumbo_siopao May 05 '18 at 19:39
I do not have much knowledge of Unix/Linux , but the error you are getting is because of Admin privileges. Though I have run the same code on window and it is working fine. – cruisepandey May 08 '18 at 13:57
thanks for the reply.... I'll accept this when I figure it out how to do it on mac. – jumbo_siopao May 08 '18 at 18:42
Yeah that'll do ! – cruisepandey May 09 '18 at 06:24
TASKKILL is a windows program, use `kill -9 PID_OF_PROCESS` or `killall Google\ Chrome` – Brydenr Jun 22 '18 at 22:04

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '18 at 07:02

If I understand correctly, you are trying to automate a part of the flow, then let the automation program exit leaving the browser open for completing rest of the steps manually. In this case, the best way to ensure only one such window is open would be to keep the automation script idling until you are done with with manual task. Something like this at end of your main function:

try {
    while(true) { 
        Thread.sleep(1000); 
        driver.getCurrentUrl(); 
    } 
} catch(Exception e) {}

Would ensure that the program remains alive as long as the browser window is open. You can continue manual process in the browser. Once you are done, you can close the browser, which would automatically end this process. Or before starting the new task, you kill the old one with ^c, which in turn closes the browser.

The second option without keeping the automation script idling, would be to find the process id of newly created browser instance. You can save the process id in some file in temporary folder. Every time your script starts, it'd check the the file, read pid from it, and if the process id exists, try to kill it before spawning a new browser window.

How to kill the browser instance (chrome) that was opened by web driver previously

2 Answers2