Selenium using Python - Geckodriver executable needs to be in PATH

Question

I am going over Sweigart's Automate the Boring Stuff with Python text. I'm using IDLE and already installed the Selenium module and the Firefox browser.

Whenever I tried to run the webdriver function, I get this:

from selenium import webdriver browser = webdriver.Firefox() 

Exception:

Exception ignored in: <bound method Service.__del__ of <selenium.webdriver.firefox.service.Service object at 0x00000249C0DA1080>> Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 163, in __del__ self.stop() File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 135, in stop if self.process is None: AttributeError: 'Service' object has no attribute 'process' Exception ignored in: <bound method Service.__del__ of <selenium.webdriver.firefox.service.Service object at 0x00000249C0E08128>> Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 163, in __del__ self.stop() File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 135, in stop if self.process is None: AttributeError: 'Service' object has no attribute 'process' Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 64, in start stdout=self.log_file, stderr=self.log_file) File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\subprocess.py", line 947, in __init__ restore_signals, start_new_session) File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\subprocess.py", line 1224, in _execute_child startupinfo) 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 "<pyshell#11>", line 1, in <module> browser = webdriver.Firefox() File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\firefox\webdriver.py", line 135, in __init__ self.service.start() File "C:\Python\Python35\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 71, in start os.path.basename(self.path), self.start_error_message) selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'geckodriver' executable needs to be in PATH. 

I think I need to set the path for geckodriver, but I am not sure how, so how would I do this?

Answer 1

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'geckodriver' executable needs to be in PATH.

First of all you will need to download latest executable geckodriver from here to run latest Firefox using Selenium

Actually, the Selenium client bindings tries to locate the geckodriver executable from the system PATH. You will need to add the directory containing the executable to the system path.

• On Unix systems you can do the following to append it to your system’s search path, if you’re using a Bash-compatible shell:

  export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/directory/of/executable/downloaded/in/previous/step 

• On Windows you will need to update the Path system variable to add the full directory path to the executable geckodrivermanually or command line** (don't forget to restart your system after adding executable geckodriver into system PATH to take effect)**. The principle is the same as on Unix.

Now you can run your code same as you're doing as below :-

from selenium import webdriver browser = webdriver.Firefox() 

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Expected browser binary location, but unable to find binary in default location, no 'moz:firefoxOptions.binary' capability provided, and no binary flag set on the command line

The exception clearly states you have installed Firefox some other location while Selenium is trying to find Firefox and launch from the default location, but it couldn't find it. You need to provide explicitly Firefox installed binary location to launch Firefox as below :-

from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver.firefox.firefox_binary import FirefoxBinary binary = FirefoxBinary('path/to/installed firefox binary') browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_binary=binary) 

Answer 2

This solved it for me.

from selenium import webdriver driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'your\path\geckodriver.exe') driver.get('http://inventwithpython.com') 

Answer 3

This steps solved it for me on Ubuntu and Firefox 50.

1. Download geckodriver

2. Copy geckodriver to folder /usr/local/bin

You do not need to add:

firefox_capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.FIREFOX firefox_capabilities['marionette'] = True firefox_capabilities['binary'] = '/usr/bin/firefox' browser = webdriver.Firefox(capabilities=firefox_capabilities) 

Answer 4

I see the discussions still talk about the old way of setting up geckodriver 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 the below change,

from selenium import webdriver from webdriver_manager.firefox import GeckoDriverManager driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=GeckoDriverManager().install()) 

Answer 5

On macOS with Homebrew already installed, you can simply run the Terminal command:

brew install geckodriver 

Because Homebrew already did extend the PATH there isn’t any need to modify any startup scripts.

Answer 6

The answer by saurabh solves the issue, but it doesn't explain why Automate the Boring Stuff with Python doesn't include those steps.

This is caused by the book being based on Selenium 2.x and the Firefox driver for that series does not need the Gecko driver. The Gecko interface to drive the browser was not available when Selenium was being developed.

The latest version in the Selenium 2.x series is 2.53.6 (see e.g. these answers, for an easier view of the versions).

The 2.53.6 version page doesn't mention Gecko at all. But since version 3.0.2 the documentation explicitly states you need to install the Gecko driver.

If after an upgrade (or install on a new system), your software that worked fine before (or on your old system) doesn't work anymore and you are in a hurry, pin the Selenium version in your virtualenv by doing

pip install selenium==2.53.6 

but of course the long term solution for development is to setup a new virtualenv with the latest version of selenium, install the Gecko driver and test if everything still works as expected.

But the major version bump might introduce other API changes that are not covered by your book, so you might want to stick with the older Selenium, until you are confident enough that you can fix any discrepancies between the Selenium 2 and Selenium 3 API yourself.

Answer 7

To set up geckodriver for Selenium Python:

It needs to set the geckodriver path with FirefoxDriver as the below code:

self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path = 'D:\Selenium_RiponAlWasim\geckodriver-v0.18.0-win64\geckodriver.exe') 

Download geckodriver for your suitable OS (from https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases) → Extract it in a folder of your choice → Set the path correctly as mentioned above.

I'm using Python 3.6.2 and Selenium WebDriver 3.4.3 on Windows 10.

Another way to set up geckodriver:

i) Simply paste the geckodriver.exe under /Python/Scripts/ (in my case the folder was: C:\Python36\Scripts)
ii) Now write the simple code as below:

self.driver = webdriver.Firefox() 

Answer 8

Ubuntu 18.04+ and the newest release of geckodriver

This should also work for other Unix-like varieties as well.

export GV=v0.30.0 wget "https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/download/$GV/geckodriver-$GV-linux64.tar.gz" tar xvzf geckodriver-$GV-linux64.tar.gz chmod +x geckodriver sudo cp geckodriver /usr/local/bin/ 

For Mac update to:

geckodriver-$GV-macos.tar.gz 

Answer 9

If you are using Anaconda, all you have to do is activate your virtual environment and then install geckodriver using the following command:

conda install -c conda-forge geckodriver 

Answer 10

The easiest way for Windows!

Download the latest version of geckodriver from here. Add the geckodriver.exe file to the Python directory (or any other directory which already in PATH). This should solve the problem (it was tested on Windows 10).

Answer 11

geckodriver is not installed by default.

geckodriver 

Output:

Command 'geckodriver' not found, but it can be installed with: sudo apt install firefox-geckodriver 

The following command not only installs it, but it also puts it in the executable PATH.

sudo apt install firefox-geckodriver 

The problem is solved with only a single step. I had exactly the same error as you and it was gone as soon as I installed it. Go ahead and give it a try.

which geckodriver 

Output:

/usr/bin/geckodriver 

---

geckodriver 

Output:

1337 geckodriver INFO Listening on 127.0.0.1:4444 ^C 

Answer 12

For versions Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) and later you can do:

For Firefox:
sudo apt-get install firefox-geckodriver

For Chrome:
sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver

Answer 13

Steps for Mac

The simple solution is to download GeckoDriver and add it to your system PATH. You can use either of the two approaches:

Short Method

1. Download and unzip Geckodriver.

2. Mention the path while initiating the driver:

   driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path='/your/path/to/geckodriver') 

Long Method

1. Download and unzip Geckodriver.

2. Open .bash_profile. If you haven't created it yet, you can do so using the command: touch ~/.bash_profile. Then open it using: open ~/.bash_profile

3. Considering GeckoDriver file is present in your Downloads folder, you can add the following line(s) to the .bash_profile file:

   PATH="/Users/<your-name>/Downloads/geckodriver:$PATH" export PATH 

By this you are appending the path to GeckoDriver to your System PATH. This tells the system where GeckoDriver is located when executing your Selenium scripts.

4. Save the .bash_profile and force it to execute. This loads the values immediately without having to reboot. To do this you can run the following command:

source ~/.bash_profile

5. That's it. You are done! You can run the Python script now.

Answer 14

Some additional input/clarification:

The following suffices as a resolution for Windows 7, Python 3.6, and Selenium 3.11:

dsalaj's note for another answer for Unix is applicable to Windows as well; tinkering with the PATH environment variable at the Windows level and restart of the Windows system can be avoided.

(1) Download geckodriver (as described in this thread earlier) and place the (unzipped) geckdriver.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.Firefox(); browser.get('http://localhost:8000') assert 'Django' in browser.title 

Notes:

(1) It may take about 10 seconds for the above code 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':

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Reached error page: about:neterror?e=connectionFailure&u=http%3A//localhost%3A8000/&c=UTF-8&f=regular&d=Firefox%20can%E2%80%9

Answer 15

I've actually discovered you can use the latest geckodriver without putting it in the system path. Currently I'm using

https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/download/v0.12.0/geckodriver-v0.12.0-win64.zip

Firefox 50.1.0

Python 3.5.2

Selenium 3.0.2

Windows 10

I'm running a VirtualEnv (which I manage using PyCharm, and I assume it uses Pip to install everything).

In the following code I can use a specific path for the geckodriver using the executable_path parameter (I discovered this by having a look in Lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\firefox\webdriver.py ). Note I have a suspicion that the order of parameter arguments when calling the webdriver is important, which is why the executable_path is last in my code (the second to last line off to the far right).

You may also notice I use a custom Firefox profile to get around the sec_error_unknown_issuer problem that you will run into if the site you're testing has an untrusted certificate. See How to disable Firefox's untrusted connection warning using Selenium?

After investigation it was found that the Marionette driver is incomplete and still in progress, and no amount of setting various capabilities or profile options for dismissing or setting certificates was going to work. So it was just easier to use a custom profile.

Anyway, here's the code on how I got the geckodriver to work without being in the path:

from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver.common.desired_capabilities import DesiredCapabilities firefox_capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.FIREFOX firefox_capabilities['marionette'] = True #you probably don't need the next 3 lines they don't seem to work anyway firefox_capabilities['handleAlerts'] = True firefox_capabilities['acceptSslCerts'] = True firefox_capabilities['acceptInsecureCerts'] = True # In the next line I'm using a specific Firefox profile because # I wanted to get around the sec_error_unknown_issuer problems with the new Firefox and Marionette driver # I create a Firefox profile where I had already made an exception for the site I'm testing # see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager ffProfilePath = 'D:\Work\PyTestFramework\FirefoxSeleniumProfile' profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile(profile_directory=ffProfilePath) geckoPath = 'D:\Work\PyTestFramework\geckodriver.exe' browser = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile, capabilities=firefox_capabilities, executable_path=geckoPath) browser.get('http://stackoverflow.com') 

Answer 16

A new way to avert the error is using Conda environments.

Use conda install -c conda-forge geckodriver and you do not have to add anything to the path or edit the code!

Answer 17

You can solve this issue by using a simple command if you are on Linux

1. First, download (https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases) and extract the ZIP file

2. Open the extracted folder

3. Open the terminal from the folder (where the geckodriver file is located after extraction)

   

4. Now run this simple command on your terminal to copy the geckodriver into the correct folder:

    sudo cp geckodriver /usr/local/bin 

Answer 18

Consider installing a containerized Firefox:

docker pull selenium/standalone-firefox docker run --rm -d -p 5555:4444 --shm-size=2g selenium/standalone-firefox 

Connect using webdriver.Remote:

driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:5555/wd/hub', DesiredCapabilities.FIREFOX) driver.set_window_size(1280, 1024) driver.get('https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/browserinfo/') driver.save_screenshot('info.png') 

Answer 19

It's really rather sad that none of the books published on Selenium/Python and most of the comments on this issue via Google do not clearly explain the pathing logic to set this up on Mac (everything is Windows!). The YouTube videos all pickup at the "after" you've got the pathing setup (in my mind, the cheap way out!). So, for you wonderful Mac users, use the following to edit your Bash path files:

touch ~/.bash_profile; open ~/.bash_profile* 

Then add a path something like this....

# Setting PATH for geckodriver PATH=“/usr/bin/geckodriver:${PATH}” export PATH # Setting PATH for Selenium Firefox PATH=“~/Users/yourNamePATH/VEnvPythonInterpreter/lib/python2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/:${PATH}” export PATH # Setting PATH for executable on Firefox driver PATH=“/Users/yournamePATH/VEnvPythonInterpreter/lib/python2.7/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/common/service.py:${PATH}” export PATH* 

This worked for me.

Answer 20

I developed a script on Linux desktop, to deploy on my headless server. I needed to update running on Windows but got this same error for a couple of reasons:

"selenium.common.exceptions.sessionnotcreatedexception: message: expected browser binary location, but unable to find binary in default location, no 'moz:firefoxoptions.binary' capability provided, and no binary flag set on the command line"

This is Windows; I needed to install Firefox, which I probably goofed up because it was lagging and I had two installations progressing for a time.

Once Firefox was installed I found a confirmed solution (eg https://stackoverflow.com/a/42122284) instructing me to use executable_path:

from selenium import webdriver driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'your\path\geckodriver.exe') 

That parameter is unrecognised since a couple of years ago. Instead I need a Service instance. I add this alongside my options, which were required because Firefox still could not be found (which my impatience double installing might be blamed for):

from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver import FirefoxOptions from selenium.webdriver.firefox.service import Service opts.binary_location = r"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" service = Service(r"C:\Users\pythonista\PycharmProjects\world_eater\geckodriver.exe") driver = webdriver.Firefox(service=service, options=opts) 

This is my only selenium project presently, it can manage its own geckodriver.

Answer 21

I'm using Windows 10 and this worked for me:

1. Download geckodriver from here. Download the right version for the computer you are using.
2. Unzip the file you just downloaded and cut/copy the ".exe" file it contains
3. Navigate to C:{your python root folder}. Mine was C:\Python27. Paste the geckodriver.exe file in this folder.
4. Restart your development environment.
5. Try running the code again. It should work now.

Answer 22

from webdriverdownloader import GeckoDriverDownloader # vs ChromeDriverDownloader vs OperaChromiumDriverDownloader gdd = GeckoDriverDownloader() gdd.download_and_install() #gdd.download_and_install("v0.19.0") 

This will get you the path to your gekodriver.exe on Windows.

from selenium import webdriver driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'C:\\Users\\username\\\bin\\geckodriver.exe') driver.get('https://www.amazon.com/') 

Answer 23

For MacBook users:

Step 1:

Open this link and copy that Homebrew path, paste it in terminal and install it.

Step 2:

brew install geckodriver 

Step 3:

pip install webdriver-manager 

Answer 24

Selenium answers this question in their DESCRIPTION.rst file:

Drivers
=======

Selenium requires a driver to interface with the chosen browser. Firefox, for example, requires geckodriver <https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases>_, which needs to be installed before the below examples can be run. Make sure it's in your PATH, e. g., place it in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.

Failure to observe this step will give you an error `selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'geckodriver' executable needs to be in PATH.

Basically just download the geckodriver, unpack it and move the executable to your /usr/bin folder.

Answer 25

For Windows users

Use the original code as it's:

from selenium import webdriver browser = webdriver.Firefox() driver.get("https://www.google.com") 

Then download the driver from: mozilla/geckodriver

Place it in a fixed path (permanently)... As an example, I put it in:

C:\Python35

Then go to the environment variables of the system. In the grid of "System variables" look for the Path variable and add:

;C:\Python35\geckodriver

geckodriver, not geckodriver.exe.

Answer 26

If you use a virtual environment and Windows 10 (maybe it's the same for other systems), you just need to put geckodriver.exe into the following folder in your virtual environment directory:

...\my_virtual_env_directory\Scripts\geckodriver.exe

Answer 27

The major changes of selenium4.10.0 mean that you'll no longer see the Geckodriver error message if you upgrade your selenium version. selenium has a built-in driver manager (now fully out of beta) that will automatically download geckodriver for you if it's not found on your system PATH. Even the method arg executable_path has been removed from webdriver.Firefox(), as seen below:

https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/commit/9f5801c82fb3be3d5850707c46c3f8176e3ccd8e

Now, this is all you need to launch Firefox, even if it is not on your System Path:

from selenium import webdriver driver = webdriver.Firefox() # ... driver.quit() 

To customize Firefox, use the options and service args:

from selenium import webdriver from selenium.webdriver.firefox.service import Service service = Service() options = webdriver.FirefoxOptions() driver = webdriver.Firefox(service=service, options=options) # ... driver.quit() 

(As before, geckodriver will be downloaded automatically if it is not found on your system PATH.)

Answer 28

On macOS v10.12.1 (Sierra) and Python 2.7.10, this works for me:

def download(url): firefox_capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.FIREFOX firefox_capabilities['marionette'] = True browser = webdriver.Firefox(capabilities=firefox_capabilities, executable_path=r'/Users/Do01/Documents/crawler-env/geckodriver') browser.get(url) return browser.page_source 

Answer 29

On Raspberry Pi I had to create it from the ARM driver and set the geckodriver and log path in file webdriver.py:

sudo nano /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/webdriver.py 

def __init__(self, firefox_profile=None, firefox_binary=None, timeout=30, capabilities=None, proxy=None, executable_path="/PATH/gecko/geckodriver", firefox_options=None, log_path="/PATH/geckodriver.log"): 

Answer 30

For me it was enough just to install geckodriver in the same environment:

brew install geckodriver 

And the code was not changed:

from selenium import webdriver browser = webdriver.Firefox()