session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 74 error with ChromeDriver Chrome using Selenium

I'm trying to run RSelenium using the rsDriver function, but when I run rD <- rsDriver() I get a message telling me I need a newer version of Chrome:

> rD <- rsDriver()
checking Selenium Server versions:
BEGIN: PREDOWNLOAD
BEGIN: DOWNLOAD
BEGIN: POSTDOWNLOAD
checking chromedriver versions:
BEGIN: PREDOWNLOAD
BEGIN: DOWNLOAD
BEGIN: POSTDOWNLOAD
checking geckodriver versions:
BEGIN: PREDOWNLOAD
BEGIN: DOWNLOAD
BEGIN: POSTDOWNLOAD
checking phantomjs versions:
BEGIN: PREDOWNLOAD
BEGIN: DOWNLOAD
BEGIN: POSTDOWNLOAD
[1] "Connecting to remote server"

Selenium message:session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 74
  (Driver info: chromedriver=74.0.3729.6 (255758eccf3d244491b8a1317aa76e1ce10d57e9-refs/branch-heads/3729@{#29}),platform=Mac OS X 10.14.3 x86_64)

Could not open chrome browser.
Client error message:
	 Summary: SessionNotCreatedException
 	 Detail: A new session could not be created.
	 Further Details: run errorDetails method
Check server log for further details.

The error message appears to say that I need Chrome version 74.0.3729.6, but when I look in Chrome's settings, it tells me that I'm running the latest stable version (73.0.3683.75). Upon further googling, 74.0.3729.6 is a pre-release dev version of Chrome: do I need to install this in order to use ChromeDriver with RSelenium?

I'm not wedded to the idea of using Chrome, but I haven't been able to get rsDriver to use Firefox: when I specify browser = "firefox", rsDriver gives me the same error message about ChromeDriver not supporting my version of Chrome.

My session info is:

R version 3.5.2 (2018-12-20)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Mojave 10.14.3

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.5/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/C/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] wdman_0.2.4     forcats_0.3.0   stringr_1.3.1   dplyr_0.7.8     purrr_0.2.5     readr_1.3.1     tidyr_0.8.2    
 [8] tibble_2.0.1    ggplot2_3.1.0   tidyverse_1.2.1 rvest_0.3.2     xml2_1.2.0      RSelenium_1.7.5

For MacOS chromedriver upgrade did the trick:

brew upgrade --cask chromedriver

This error message...

Selenium message:session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 74
  (Driver info: chromedriver=74.0.3729.6 (255758eccf3d244491b8a1317aa76e1ce10d57e9-refs/branch-heads/3729@{#29}),platform=Mac OS X 10.14.3 x86_64)

...implies that the ChromeDriver expects the Chrome Browser version to be 74.

---

Quick installation of the latest ChromeDriver

To install the latest version of ChromeDriver you can use:

• Mac users with Homebrew: brew tap homebrew/cask && brew cask install chromedriver
• Debian based Linux distros: sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver
• Windows users with Chocolatey installed: choco install chromedriver

---

Analysis

Your main issue is the incompatibility between the version of the binaries you are using as follows:

• You are using chromedriver=74.0.3729.6
• Release Notes of chromedriver=74.0.3729.6 clearly mentions the following :

>Supports Chrome v74

• You are using the currently released chrome=73.0

So there is a clear mismatch between the ChromeDriver v74.0.3729.6 and the Chrome Browser v73.0

---

Solution

• Downgrade ChromeDriver to ChromeDriver v73.0.3683.68 level.
• Keep Chrome version at Chrome v73 level. (as per ChromeDriver v73.0.3683.68 release notes)
• Clean your Project Workspace through your IDE and Rebuild your project with required dependencies only.
• If your base Web Client version is too old, then uninstall it and install a recent GA and released version of Web Client.
• Execute your @Test.
• Always invoke driver.quit() within tearDown(){} method to close & destroy the WebDriver and Web Client instances gracefully.

---

Reference

You can find a relevant detailed discussion in:

• How to work with a specific version of ChromeDriver while Chrome Browser gets updated automatically through Python selenium

I encountered the same issue today and found this post and others from Google. I think I may have a more direct solution as a modification of your code. The previous answer is correct in identifying the mismatch in versions.

I tried the proposed solutions to no avail. I found that the versions were correct on my computer. However, this mismatch error was not resulting from the actual versions installed on the computer, but rather the RSelenium code is seeking the "latest" version of Chrome/ChromeDriver by default argument. See ?rsDriver() help page for the arguments.

If you run the code binman::list_versions("chromedriver") as specified in the help documentation, then you can identify the versions of compatible with the function. In my case, I was able to use the following code to establish a connection.

driver <- rsDriver(browser=c("chrome"), chromever="73.0.3683.68", extraCapabilities = eCaps)

You should be able to specify your version of Chrome with the chromever= argument. I had to use the closest version, though (my chrome version was "73.0.3683.75").

Hope this helps!

Updating the Google Chrome version to 74 worked for me.

Steps:

1. Go to Help -> About Google Chrome -> Chrome will automatically look for updates(update Chrome to the latest version)

I had to reinstall protractor for it to pull the updated webdriver-manager module. Also, per @Mark’s comment, the package-lock.json may be locking the dependency.

npm uninstall protractor
npm install --save-dev protractor

Then, make sure to check the maxChromedriver value in node_modules/protractor/node_modules/webdriver-manager/config.json after re-install to verify it matches the desired Chrome driver version.

Update

I've submitted a pull request to RSelenium adding the ChromeDriver version selection logic proposed in my original answer. Until it gets merged (if at all), you can install it with

remotes::install_github("ropensci/RSelenium#237")

Then you can call rsDriver() with the new chromever = "latest_compatible" option which should always select the right ChromeDriver version:

RSelenium::rsDriver(browser = "chrome",
                    chromever = "latest_compatible")

Original answer

I ran into the same kind of error using RSelenium::rsDriver()'s default chromever = "latest" setting which resulted in the failed attempt to combine chromedriver 75.0.3770.8 with latest google-chrome-stable 74.0.3729.157:

session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 75

Since this obviously seems to be a recurring and pretty annoying issue, I have come up with the following workaround to always use the latest compatible ChromeDriver version:

rD <- RSelenium::rsDriver(browser = "chrome",
                          chromever =
                                  system2(command = "google-chrome-stable",
                                          args = "--version",
                                          stdout = TRUE,
                                          stderr = TRUE) %>%
                                  stringr::str_extract(pattern = "(?<=Chrome )\\d+\\.\\d+\\.\\d+\\.") %>%
                                  magrittr::extract(!is.na(.)) %>%
                                  stringr::str_replace_all(pattern = "\\.",
                                                           replacement = "\\\\.") %>%
                                  paste0("^",  .) %>%
                                  stringr::str_subset(string =
                                                              binman::list_versions(appname = "chromedriver") %>%
                                                              dplyr::last()) %>%
                                  as.numeric_version() %>%
                                  max() %>%
                                  as.character())

The above code is only tested under Linux and makes use of some tidyverse packages (install them beforehand or rewrite it in base R). For other operating systems you might have to adapt it a bit, particularly replace command = "google-chrome-stable" with the system-specific command to launch Google Chrome:

• On macOS it should be enough to replace command = "google-chrome-stable" with command = "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome".

• On Windows a plattform-specific bug prevents us from calling the Google Chrome binary directly to get its version number. Instead do the following:

  rD <- RSelenium::rsDriver(browser = "chrome",
  						  chromever =
  							system2(command = "wmic",
                                      args = 'datafile where name="C:\\\\Program Files (x86)\\\\Google\\\\Chrome\\\\Application\\\\chrome.exe" get Version /value',
  									stdout = TRUE,
  									stderr = TRUE) %>%
  							stringr::str_extract(pattern = "(?<=Version=)\\d+\\.\\d+\\.\\d+\\.") %>%
  							magrittr::extract(!is.na(.)) %>%
  							stringr::str_replace_all(pattern = "\\.",
                                                       replacement = "\\\\.") %>%
  							paste0("^",  .) %>%
                              stringr::str_subset(string =
                                                          binman::list_versions(appname = "chromedriver") %>%
                                                          dplyr::last()) %>% 
  							as.numeric_version() %>%
  							max() %>%
  							as.character())
  

Basically, the code just ensures the latest ChromeDriver version matching the major-minor-patch version number of the system's stable Google Chrome browser is passed as chromever argument. This procedure should adhere to the official ChromeDriver versioning scheme. Quote:

> - ChromeDriver uses the same version number scheme as Chrome (...) > - Each version of ChromeDriver supports Chrome with matching major, minor, and build version numbers. For example, ChromeDriver 73.0.3683.20 supports all Chrome versions that start with 73.0.3683.

I dealed with this issue today and upgrading my webdrivermanger solved it for me (My previous version was 3.0.0):

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
    <artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.0</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Travis CI alternative

Another answer since Francesco Borzi's didn't work for me.

Add this to your travis.yml:

addons:
  chrome: stable

before_script:
  - LATEST_CHROMEDRIVER_VERSION=`curl -s "https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE"`
  - curl "https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/${LATEST_CHROMEDRIVER_VERSION}/chromedriver_linux64.zip" -O
  - unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip -d ~/bin

Many thanks and credit to tagliala on github:

https://github.com/diowa/ruby2-rails5-bootstrap-heroku/commit/6ba95f33f922895090d3fabc140816db67b09672

I was really struggling with this mismatch between ChromeDriver v74.0.3729.6 and the Chrome Browser v73.0. I finally found a way to get ChromeDriver to an earlier version,

1. In Chrome > About Google Chrome, copy the the version number, except for the last group. For instance, 72.0.3626.

2. Paste that version at the end of this url and visit it. It will come back with a version, which you should copy. https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE_

3. Back in the command line, run bundle exec chromedriver-update <copied version>

Travis CI

I had the same issue in Travis and solved by adding:

addons:
  chrome: stable

to my .travis.yml file.

$ which chromedriver
/usr/local/bin/chromedriver
$ chromedriver --version
ChromeDriver 78.0.3904.105

I downloaded a zip file from https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads It says "If you are using Chrome version 79, please download ChromeDriver 79.0.3945.36" and I was using Chrome version 79. (I checked chrome://settings/help) Apparently, the error for me was "This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 78"

And then I clicked the zip file and move that "chromedriver" file into /usr/local/bin/ directory. That solved the issue.

$ which chromedriver
$ chromedriver --version
ChromeDriver 79.0.3945.36

This solution worked for me

1. Make sure you're using R 3.5.3 or greater
2. driver <- rsDriver(browser=c("chrome"), chromever="73.0.3683.68")

Ran into this issue and was able to solve by 2 main steps:

1 - Update to latest chromedriver via homebrew cli

brew cask upgrade chromedriver

2 - update to lastest ver via Chrome GUI

chrome://settings/help or cmd + , then tacking on help at the end (your choice)

from there you should land on the About Chrome Page. Here you will need to verify that you are on the latest and greatest version (problem i was running into stemmed from a mismatch in the cli vs the current chrome version)

if you getting the error, you will see a update & relaunch primary action button.

after chrome "relaunches" it will now have the newest version matching your cli

example:

Google Chrome is up to date
Version 80.0.3987.87 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I got the same error when I am using robot framework (Selenium based framework) in a Docker instance. The reason was docker was using cached google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb for Chrome but it has installed latest chrome driver which was a later version.

Then I used below command and error resolved.

docker-compose build --no-cache

Hope this helps someone.

I was facing the same error:

> session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 75 > > ... > > Driver info: driver.version: ChromeDriver

We are running the tests from a computer that has no real UI, so I had to work via a command line (CLI).

I started by detecting the current version of Chrome that was installed on the Linux computer:

$> google-chrome --version

And got this response: > Google Chrome 74.0.3729.169

So then I updated the Chrome version like that:

$> sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

And after checking again the version I got this:

> Google Chrome 75.0.3770.100

Then the Selenium tests were able to run smoothly.

There's no need to downgrade Chrome anymore, when you get this error only means it's time to run webdriver-manager update again

Just update protractor:

npm install protractor@latest --save-dev

You can specify the exact version of your Chrome installation like this:

webdriver-manager update --versions.chrome 73.0.3683.75

Maybe you need to do a webdriver-manager clean first in the case of a downgrade.

I have almost the same problems like this, the problems is come inside the pipeline when running my selenium test that need chromedriver package to running the e2e test.

My error build pipeline

The problems is just because in the pipeline (in my case) is having the chrome version 73, and my chromedriver package is installed on version 74.

> Finally there are two simple solutions: > > 1. Downgrade your chrome > 2. Downgrade your chromedriver package version. in my case, cause i running inside the pipeline i need to install chromedriver before > running the selenium test like displayed below. > > - script: npm install [email protected] --chromedriver-force-download displayName: 'Install Chrome'

The same problem happened to me today.

My solution:

Download the latest stable release of chromedriver: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/

Update the chrome driver on your Selenium folder. This is a bit hard, because is in a hidden folder on your PC called AppData. Here is how I did it in my computer (Windows 7):

C: > users > your user > \AppData (you need to write this in the folder path box, since it is a hidden folder) > Local (this is the folder name in portuguese, maybe it will have a different name for you) > SeleniumBasic

There you will find the chromedriver application. Just rename it (in case it does not work, you want to have the older version) and than paste the newest release.

I had the very same issue recently. This was my error:

System.InvalidOperationException : session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 76 (SessionNotCreated)

This fix worked for me:

• make sure there are no running chromedriver.exe processes (if needed kill them all e.g. via task manager)
• go to bin folder and delete chromedriver.exe file from there (in my case it was: [project_folder]\bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1)

Make sure You have the latest version of webdriver-manager. You can install the same using npm i webdriver-manager@latest --save

Then run the following

command.webdriver-manager update

I had the same problem and solved it by simply downloading a chromedriver file for a previous version of chrome. I have found that version 79 of Chrome is compatible with the current version of Selenium.

I then saved it in a specified path, and linked that path to my webdriver.

The exact steps are specified in this link: http://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads

I had similar problem on my mac os bigsur In 2021, on mac the correct command is

brew upgrade --cask chromedriver