Testing with Protractor on Recent Chrome Versions

Common Error

You might encounter this error when using Protractor with Chrome:

E/runner - Unable to start a WebDriver session.
E/launcher - Error: SessionNotCreatedError: session not created:
    This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 114
    Current browser version is <SOME_VERSION> with binary path <SOME_PATH>

Overview of Key Components

To understand this issue, let's review the key components involved in running end-to-end tests with Protractor:

• Browser: Where the tests run
• Protractor: Reads test files and translates them to browser operations
• WebDriver: Intermediary driver following the W3C WebDriver Standard
• ChromeDriver: Chrome-specific implementation of WebDriver

Communication Routes

Protractor can communicate with the browser in three ways:

1. Direct Communication
   • Uses directConnect: true in Protractor configuration
   • Only works for Chrome and Firefox
2. Local Selenium Server
   • Uses seleniumServerJar option
   • Or uses seleniumAddress with local instance
3. Remote Selenium Server
   • Uses seleniumAddress with remote instance
   • Includes cloud-based platforms like BrowserStack or SauceLabs

Why Is This Error Happening?

The error occurs because:

1. The process for identifying and downloading ChromeDriver binaries changed for Chrome/ChromeDriver versions 115+
2. webdriver-manager can no longer locate and download ChromeDriver versions newer than v114
3. This impacts Protractor when it relies on webdriver-manager
4. Current stable Chrome version (at time of writing) is 126

How to Resolve the Issue

Solution Using chromedriver npm package

1. Add chromedriver to devDependencies
   npm install --save-dev chromedriver
   

2. Configure Auto-Detection (Optional)
   • Add to .npmrc:
     detect_chromedriver_version=true
     

3. Run npm install
   npm install
   

Configuration Based on Your Setup

Case 1: Using directConnect or seleniumServerJar

Update your Protractor configuration:

// protractor.conf.js
exports.config = {
  chromeDriver: require('chromedriver').path,
  // ... other config options
};

Case 2: Using seleniumAddress with webdriver-manager

1. Modify webdriver-manager update command
   npx webdriver-manager update --no-chrome
   

2. Add npm script for Selenium Server
   {
     "scripts": {
       "start-selenium": "webdriver-manager start",
       "postinstall": "node --eval \"os.platform().startsWith('win') && fs.unlinkSync('node_modules/.bin/chromedriver')\""
     }
   }
   

   Note for Windows Users: The postinstall script removes the UNIX-based chromedriver executable to prevent Selenium Server confusion.

Key Points to Remember

1. Ensure node_modules/.bin/ is in your PATH when starting Selenium Server
2. Run npm install after adding new scripts
3. The Windows-specific postinstall script is only needed for Case 2 setups

Troubleshooting Notes

If you're still experiencing issues:

• Verify all configuration changes are applied
• Check PATH environment variable
• Confirm correct versions of Node.js and npm
• Ensure proper permissions for file operations
• Check compatibility between ChromeDriver and Chrome versions