Is Firefox 32 or 33 expected to work with Selenium RC?

Question

Just wanted to ask why Selenium RC is not able to work with recent Firefox versions?

Here is the code (groovy):

import org.openqa.selenium.server.*;
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.DefaultSelenium
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.Selenium
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.SeleniumException
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.Wait
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit


RemoteControlConfiguration rcc = new RemoteControlConfiguration()
System.out.println("Using firefox launcher")
File ffp = new File("C:\\Work\\ff_custom_profile")
rcc.setFirefoxProfileTemplate(ffp)
rcc.setPort(4444)

seleniumServer = new SeleniumServer(rcc)
seleniumServer.start()

System.out.println("Server started")

Selenium seleniumInstance = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "firefox", "https://url/")
seleniumInstance.start()

System.out.println("Driver started");

When I run this code with Firefox 28 (Windows 7 x86), it works fine:

Using firefox launcher
20:46:35.692 INFO - Java: Sun Microsystems Inc. 20.14-b01
20:46:35.692 INFO - OS: Windows 7 6.1 x86
20:46:35.723 INFO - v2.43.1, with Core v2.43.1. Built from revision 5163bce
20:46:36.020 INFO - RemoteWebDriver instances should connect to: http://127.0.0.1:4444/wd/hub
20:46:36.020 INFO - Version Jetty/5.1.x
20:46:36.020 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server/driver,/selenium-server/driver]
20:46:36.035 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server,/selenium-server]
20:46:36.035 INFO - Started HttpContext[/,/]
20:46:36.067 INFO - Started org.openqa.jetty.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler@1114460
20:46:36.067 INFO - Started HttpContext[/wd,/wd]
20:46:36.067 INFO - Started SocketListener on 0.0.0.0:4444
20:46:36.067 INFO - Started org.openqa.jetty.jetty.Server@15e0873
Server started
20:46:36.160 INFO - Checking Resource aliases
20:46:36.191 INFO - Command request: getNewBrowserSession[firefox, https://url/, ] on session null
20:46:36.207 INFO - creating new remote session
20:46:36.238 INFO - Allocated session 640d3bf362ab4840ad7c3f3ac2b5695d for https://url/, launching...
jar:file:/C:/Work/TMP/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar!/customProfileDirCUSTFFCHROME
20:46:36.925 INFO - Preparing Firefox profile...
20:46:38.127 INFO - Launching Firefox...
20:46:41.537 INFO - Got result: OK,640d3bf362ab4840ad7c3f3ac2b5695d on session 640d3bf362ab4840ad7c3f3ac2b5695d
Driver started

But when I run this code with Firefox 32 or 33 (Windows 7 x86), I gets the following:

Using firefox launcher
20:49:26.467 INFO - Java: Sun Microsystems Inc. 20.14-b01
20:49:26.467 INFO - OS: Windows 7 6.1 x86
20:49:26.467 INFO - v2.43.1, with Core v2.43.1. Built from revision 5163bce
20:49:26.576 INFO - RemoteWebDriver instances should connect to: http://127.0.0.1:4444/wd/hub
20:49:26.576 INFO - Version Jetty/5.1.x
20:49:26.591 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server/driver,/selenium-server/driver]
20:49:26.591 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server,/selenium-server]
20:49:26.591 INFO - Started HttpContext[/,/]
20:49:26.607 INFO - Started org.openqa.jetty.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler@1114460
20:49:26.607 INFO - Started HttpContext[/wd,/wd]
20:49:26.623 INFO - Started SocketListener on 0.0.0.0:4444
20:49:26.623 INFO - Started org.openqa.jetty.jetty.Server@15e0873
Server started
20:49:26.669 INFO - Checking Resource aliases
20:49:26.669 INFO - Command request: getNewBrowserSession[firefox, https://url/, ] on session null
20:49:26.669 INFO - creating new remote session
20:49:26.685 INFO - Allocated session 740dfe19fd58418db02be166c420516d for https://url/, launching...
jar:file:/C:/Work/TMP/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar!/customProfileDirCUSTFFCHROME
20:49:27.247 INFO - Preparing Firefox profile...
20:49:28.386 INFO - Launching Firefox...

Please, note the difference in the output: with Firefox 28, Selenium client started successfully ...

20:46:41.537 INFO - Got result: OK,640d3bf362ab4840ad7c3f3ac2b5695d on session 640d3bf362ab4840ad7c3f3ac2b5695d

... while with Firefox 32 or 33 it failed.

I ran some experiments and found out that I can make it work in FF 32 or 33 by changing the following setting in Firefox profile (prefs.js):

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "33.1.1");

If I change it to the value that was in my FF 28 profile (16.0.2):

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "16.0.2");

then, it works fine. But I don't like this hack for two reasons:

1. When I open Firefox after this change with the script, it opens the Whatsnew page (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/33.1.1/whatsnew/?oldversion=16.0.2) and it is very annoying for automation.

2. When I open Firefox after this change manually, this setting goes back to its previous value (33.1.1) and the story starts from the beginning.

I tried different Selenium RC version (2.41, 2.42, 2.43) with the same results.

With Firefox 32 & 33 and Selenium RC 2.44, I get the following error: Failed to start new browser session: java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Firefox could not be found in the path! Please add the directory containing ''firefox.exe'' to your PATH environment.

Well, I changed the code to...

Selenium seleniumInstance = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*firefox C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe", "https://url/"

... and get the same failure as described above for Selenium 2.42 and 2.43.1.

So here is the question: why Firefox 32 or 33 doesn't work with Selenium RC, and how to make it work?

A note: I do realize it makes sense to migrate to Selenium 2 (WebDriver), but for some reasons, I need to support this legacy code at its current state.

Answer 1

Usually selenium will release a newer version of their client shortly after a browser update. Keep an eye on the downloads page.