Headless automation with Nodejs Selenium Webdriver

Question

I am working with an automation tool which has to be deployed inside an ubuntu server, my wonder is if is possible to use chrome in a silent way with Selenium Webdriver.

I've tried the following code so far, but it keeps opening the browser (I'm doing the tests in a Windows 10):

    var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
        chrome    = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome')
        By        = webdriver.By,
        until     = webdriver.until,
        options   = new chrome.Options();
        options.addArguments('--headless');
    var path = require('chromedriver').path;
    var service = new chrome.ServiceBuilder(path).build();
        chrome.setDefaultService(service);
    var driver = new webdriver.Builder().forBrowser('chrome').withCapabilities(options.toCapabilities()).build();

driver.get('https://www.google.com');

Note that the addArguments('--headless') is the parameter that should make the navigation silent, but apparently it's not working or I am missing something I am not aware of.

If there is something I am missing, please tell me because I don't know if what I want to do is possible, as It is the frist time I work with this kind of technology.

Thanks.

What version of Chrome are you using? --headless works starting with version 59, version 60 on Windows. — SiKing
– SiKing, Commented Jul 27, 2017 at 16:28

Mark Peschel · Accepted Answer · 2024-02-14 02:20:09Z

71

Updated answer circa FEB-2018.

Referencing the Selenium Webdriver NodeJS Examples (commit 5bf50c4)

const chrome = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome');
const firefox = require('selenium-webdriver/firefox');
const {Builder, By, Key, until} = require('selenium-webdriver');

const screen = {
  width: 640,
  height: 480
};

let driver = new Builder()
    .forBrowser('chrome')
    .setChromeOptions(new chrome.Options().addArguments('--headless').windowSize(screen))
    .setFirefoxOptions(new firefox.Options().addArguments('--headless').windowSize(screen))
    .build();

Headless Chrome available since major version 59.0 APR-2017

Headless Firefox available since major version 56.0 SEP-2017

edited Feb 14, 2024 at 2:20

Mark Peschel

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answered Feb 8, 2018 at 5:01

Josh Peak

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1 Comment

westor Over a year ago

Thank you, that helped. You could just fix the screen object: {width:640,height:480}

Nir Alfasi · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-28 10:55:19Z

13

Try this one:

var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
    chrome    = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome')
    options   = new chrome.Options();
    options.addArguments('headless'); // note: without dashes
    options.addArguments('disable-gpu')
var path = require('chromedriver').path;
var service = new chrome.ServiceBuilder(path).build();
    chrome.setDefaultService(service);
var driver = new webdriver.Builder()
    .forBrowser('chrome')
    .withCapabilities(webdriver.Capabilities.chrome()) 
    .setChromeOptions(options)                         // note this
    .build();

driver.get('https://www.google.com');

edited Oct 28, 2024 at 10:55

Nir Alfasi

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answered Jul 27, 2017 at 14:16

Matti Lehtinen

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1 Comment

Luke Vanzweden Over a year ago

What do By and Until do?

cyluxx · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-20 02:43:39Z

10

Unfortunately the headless() method does not exist any more in Webdriver JS.

Use

const seleniumWebdriver = require('selenium-webdriver');
const chrome = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome');

var driver = new Builder().forBrowser('chrome')
            .setChromeOptions(new chrome.Options().addArguments('--headless'))
            .build();

instead.

answered Nov 20, 2018 at 2:43

cyluxx

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2 Comments

avilac Over a year ago

Thanks for your comment, for now we stopped using selenium webdriver and moved to puppeteer, a much more reliable solution for our scenario.

Zeeshan Ahmad Khalil Over a year ago

@avilac I completed the project in selenium-webdriver and now i found puppeteer was also a better solution oO. I will give it a shot in the next project,

Jai Prak · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-10 05:58:54Z

2

To start Chrome in headless mode, simply call Options.headless(). Starting in headless mode currently also disables GPU acceleration. This is the code:

  var seleniumWebdriver = require('selenium-webdriver');
  var chrome    = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome');

  var options   = new chrome.Options().headless();

  var driver = new seleniumWebdriver.Builder()
    .forBrowser('chrome')
    .setChromeOptions(options)
    .build();

Note: For security, Chrome disables downloads by default when in headless mode. You may call setDownloadPath to re-enable downloads.

edited Jul 10, 2018 at 5:58

answered Jul 9, 2018 at 13:17

Jai Prak

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