[SOLVED] Chromedriver on Ubuntu: selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created

Issue

I am having trouble with Selenium + Chromedriver in the Ubuntu environment in AWS (EC2 instance).

I'm using Chromedriver Linux64 version (wnload chromedriver for Linux: wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/78.0.3904.70/chromedriver_linux64.zip). I've then placed Chromedriver in /usr/bin.

Chrome was downloaded for Ubuntu using sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb If I verify the version of chrome using google-chrome --version I see that it's:

Google Chrome 78.0.3904.70 

The following Python code works, but the issue is that it only works sporadically.

options = Options()
options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
options.add_argument('--window-size=1420,1080')
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--disable-dev-shm-usage')
options.add_argument("--remote-debugging-port=9222")
options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')


driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options)

#Set base url (SAN FRANCISCO)
base_url = 'https://www.bandsintown.com/en/c/san-francisco-ca?page='

#Build events array 
events = []
eventContainerBucket = []

for i in range(1,2):

    #cycle through pages in range
    driver.get(base_url + str(i))
    pageURL = base_url + str(i)
    print(pageURL)

While the code above has worked without issue in the past, if I run it a few times, I end up getting the following error:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "BandsInTown_Scraper_SF.py", line 84, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options)
  File "/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/chrome/webdriver.py", line 81, in __init__
    desired_capabilities=desired_capabilities)
  File "/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 157, in __init__
    self.start_session(capabilities, browser_profile)
  File "/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 252, in start_session
    response = self.execute(Command.NEW_SESSION, parameters)
  File "/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 321, in execute
    self.error_handler.check_response(response)
  File "/home/ubuntu/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 242, in check_response
    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created
from disconnected: unable to connect to renderer
  (Session info: headless chrome=78.0.3904.70)

I've read that to solve this issue, you may need to edit the etc/hosts file. I've looked here, and all looks good:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost 

I'm also able to use requests and access urls through the server just fine. For example, the following text gives me no issues whatsoever:

url = 'https://www.bandsintown.com/en/c/san-francisco-ca?page=6'
res = requests.get(url)
html_page = res.content

soup = BeautifulSoup(html_page, 'html.parser')
text = soup.find_all(text=True)
print(text)

Another important piece of information that I believe could be causing this issue, is that Chromedriver may not be allowed to run in headless mode. For example, if I type chromedriver in terminal, I get this message:

Starting ChromeDriver 78.0.3904.70 (edb9c9f3de0247fd912a77b7f6cae7447f6d3ad5-refs/branch-heads/3904@{#800}) on port 9515
Only local connections are allowed.
Please protect ports used by ChromeDriver and related test frameworks to prevent access by malicious code.

Finally, if I try and do chmod 777 in /usr/bin, it says operation not permitted. Could this be part of the issue?

So, it appears Chrome + Chromedriver are the same version, so that's not the issue. Chromedriver and Selenium appear to be getting blocked. I'm a bit confused as to how to solve this.

Solution

This is solved, the problem seems to have been on my end. Deleting this line:options.add_argument("--remote-debugging-port=9222") seemed to fix this issue. Thanks.

Answered By - DiamondJoe12

Answer Checked By - David Marino (WPSolving Volunteer)