Running a Selenium test in Firefox creates two tabs and runs the in the "non-active" tab

Question

When I create an instance of the Firefox Web driver, it successfully opens Firefox. However, it opens it with two tabs (one "regular" Firefox tab and one IE tab; the IE tab is active and remains active for the duration of the testing unless I manually switch to the tab that the test is actually executing in).

It will run the test in the Firefox tab (i.e. the non-active one).

I'm instantiating my Firefox web driver like this:

var firefoxOptions = new FirefoxOptions()
{
    Profile = new FirefoxProfile(),
    UseLegacyImplementation = false,
    BrowserExecutableLocation = @"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe"
};

firefoxDriver = new FirefoxDriver(firefoxOptions);

firefoxDriver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 10);

I'd include the code for the unit test, too, but the problem occurs during initialization prior to me running any tests.

Also, when I do cleanup like this:

[TestCleanup]
public void Cleanup()
{
    if (firefoxDriver != null)
    {
        firefoxDriver.Close();
        firefoxDriver.Dispose();
    }
}

it closes the tab that the test was running in (the Firefox tab). However, it only closes that tab - the IE tab and the browser both stay open.

This question seems to be somewhat related, but the behavior's somewhat different because Selenium isn't trying to actually execute the test in both tabs - it only ever uses the one tab. Also, the OP there was using Firefox 20.0 and I'm using Firefox 52.2.0.

Use `firefoxDriver.Quit();` instead of `firefoxDriver.Close();` to terminate the browser. — Florent B., Jul 27 '17 at 16:23
@FlorentB. For some odd reason I don't understand, `firefoxDriver.Quit()` doesn't seem to have any effect. It doesn't throw any exception or anything like that. Calling `firefoxDriver.Close()` twice works, but it seems like a dumb hack that's masking the actual problem. — EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine, Jul 27 '17 at 16:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '17 at 16:36

1

Simply, we can create profile and use it. I answered here Firefox 44.0.1 opening two tabs , when running selenium webdriver code

Another way, we can create profile pro-grammatically like

FirefoxProfile profile= new FirefoxProfile();
profile.setPreference(“browser.startup.homepage”,”https://...");
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);

Just use about:config in firefox URL , it will provide settings.

answered Jul 27 '17 at 16:36

murali selenium

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as said driver.quit ends selenium session, so all tabs/browsers closed. driver.close only close active tab/browser. – murali selenium Jul 27 '17 at 16:38
Where should I put the `about:config` again? – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine Jul 27 '17 at 17:11
just type in URL filed of firefox and Enter to get all setting details. just for reference. not to use in code. – murali selenium Jul 27 '17 at 17:28
i prefer try once by calling saved profile. create firefox profile and do your settings and save it. call same profile in selenium. If it works fine, then we will see equivalent setPreference – murali selenium Jul 27 '17 at 17:41
I modified the code sample in my question to include setting the preferences, so I'm using the constructor with `FirefoxOptions`. – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine Jul 27 '17 at 17:47

Running a Selenium test in Firefox creates two tabs and runs the in the "non-active" tab

1 Answers1