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, Jul 27 '17 at 16:28

Josh Peak · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-08T19:51:18.953

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().headless().windowSize(screen))
    .setFirefoxOptions(new firefox.Options().headless().windowSize(screen))
    .build();

Headless Chrome available since major version 59.0 APR-2017

Headless Firefox available since major version 56.0 SEP-2017

Thank you, that helped. You could just fix the screen object: {width:640,height:480} — westor, Feb 08 '18 at 14:55

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 14:16

Try this one:

var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
    chrome    = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome')
    By        = webdriver.By,
    until     = webdriver.until,
    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');

What do By and Until do? – Luke Vanzweden Mar 02 '21 at 02:42 — Luke Vanzweden, Mar 02 '21 at 02:42

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 20 '18 at 02:43

9

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 '18 at 02:43

cyluxx

173
2
11

Thanks for your comment, for now we stopped using selenium webdriver and moved to puppeteer, a much more reliable solution for our scenario. – avilac Nov 20 '18 at 09:17
@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, – Zeeshan Ahmad Khalil Sep 15 '22 at 06:51

Jai Prak · Answer 4 · 2018-07-10T05:58:54.260

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.

Headless automation with Nodejs Selenium Webdriver

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