FileNotFoundError with Selenium (Python 3.8)

Question

I've looked at several other forum posts and found similar problems, but after trying all the solutions none of them have worked thus far. Here is my code (taken directly from a tutorial I've been following):

from time import sleep
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path='/opt/geckoDriver/geckodriver.exe')
driver.get('https://instagram.com/')
sleep(5)
driver.close()

And here is the error it's spitting out:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\14053\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 72, in start
    self.process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, env=self.env,
  File "C:\Users\14053\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\subprocess.py", line 854, in __init__
    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
  File "C:\Users\14053\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\subprocess.py", line 1307, in _execute_child
    hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "D:\Documents\Python\Instagram bot 0.py", line 5, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path='/opt/geckoDriver/geckodriver.exe')
  File "C:\Users\14053\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\firefox\webdriver.py", line 164, in __init__
    self.service.start()
  File "C:\Users\14053\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 81, in start
    raise WebDriverException(
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'geckodriver.exe' executable needs to be in PATH.

I've downloaded the geckodriver executable but it's just in my downloads folder because I have no clue where to put it for the code to access it. I've tried a few places but haven't had much luck.

(I'm somewhat new to programming/indexing in general, so explain it to me like I'm a student who has no clue)

you should specify where the geckodriver.exe file is in the executable_path instead of using what you have there. — ewokx, Jul 15 '20 at 03:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 15 '20 at 03:58

Right now, the code uses a path that refers to nothing. That's why you're getting the FileNotFound error. Instead of executable_path='/opt/geckoDriver/geckodriver.exe', you should change the executable_path to the path of your geckoDriver executable. So, it would be like (but isn't) C:\\Users\\Downloads\\geckoDriver.exe. You should also make sure that the backslashes are escaped, or else you will get another FileNotFound error since it will try to escape the character after it.

FileNotFoundError with Selenium (Python 3.8)

1 Answers1