selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created: No matching capabilities error with ChromeDriver Chrome Selenium

Question

First, machine and package specs: I am running:

ChromeDriver version 75.0.3770.140
Selenium: version '3.141.0'
WSL (linux subsystem) of windows 10

I am trying to run a chromebrowser through selenium. I found: these commands, to use selenium through google chrome.

I have a test directory, with only the chromedriver binary file, and the script, in it. The location of the directory is: /home/kela/test_dir/

I ran the code:

import selenium
from selenium import webdriver
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.firefox_binary import FirefoxBinary
from selenium.webdriver.common.desired_capabilities import DesiredCapabilities


options = Options()
options.binary_location='/home/kela/test_dir/chromedriver'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options = options,executable_path='/home/kela/test_dir/chromedriver')

The output from this code is:

selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created: No matching capabilities found

Can anyone explain why I need capabilities when the same script works for others without capabilities? I did try adding:

chrome_options.add_argument('--headless')
chrome_options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')

but I got the same error. So I'm not sure what capabilities I need to add (considering it works for others without it?)

Edit 1: Addressing DebanjanB's comments below:

1. Chromedriver is in the expected location. I am using windows 10. From here, the expected location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe; and this is where it is on my machine (I copied and pasted this location from the chrome Properties table).

2. ChromeDriver is having executable permission for non-root users.

3. I definitely have Google Chrome v75.0 installed (I can see that the Product version 75.0.3770.100)

4. I am running the script as a non-root user, as my bash command line ends with a $ and not # (i.e kela:~/test_dir$ and not kela:~/test_dir#)

Edit 2: Based on DebanjanB's answer below, I am very close to having it working, but just not quite.

The code:

import selenium
from selenium import webdriver
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.firefox_binary import FirefoxBinary
from selenium.webdriver.common.desired_capabilities import DesiredCapabilities
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.binary_location='/c/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get('http://google.com/')

Produces a dialog box that reads: Google Chrome cannot read and write to it's data directory: /tmp/.com/google.Chrom.gyw63s

So then I double checked my Chrome permissions and I should be able to write to Chrome:

Also, I can see that /tmp/ has a bunch of .com dirs in it:

.com.google.Chrome.4jnWme/ .com.google.Chrome.FdNyKP/ .com.google.Chrome.VAcWMQ/ .com.google.Chrome.ZbkRx0/ .com.google.Chrome.iRrceF/
.com.google.Chrome.A2QHHB/ .com.google.Chrome.G7Y51c/ .com.google.Chrome.WD8BtK/ .com.google.Chrome.cItmhA/ .com.google.Chrome.pm28hN/

However, since that seemed to be more of a warning than an error, I clicked 'ok' to close the dialog box, and a new tab does open in the browser; but the URL is just 'data:,'. The same thing happens if I remove the line 'driver.get('http://google.com')' from the script, so I know the warning/issue is with the line:

driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options = options,executable_path='/home/kela/test_dir/chromedriver')

For example, from here, I tried adding:

options.add_argument('--profile-directory=Default')

But the same warning pops up.

Edit 3:

As edit 3 was starting to veer into a different question than specifically being addressed here, I started a new question here.

Answer 1

This error message...

selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created: No matching capabilities found

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to initiate/spawn a new WebBrowser i.e. Chrome Browser session.

---

binary_location

binary_location set/get(s) the location of the Chrome (executable) binary and is defined as:

def binary_location(self, value):
    """
    Allows you to set where the chromium binary lives

    :Args:
     - value: path to the Chromium binary
    """
    self._binary_location = value

So as per your code trials, options.binary_location='/home/kela/test_dir/chromedriver' is incorrect.

---

Solution

If Chrome is installed at the default location, you can safely remove this property. Incase Chrome is installed at a customized location you need to use the options.binary_location property to point to the Chrome installation.

You can find a detailed discussion in Selenium: WebDriverException:Chrome failed to start: crashed as google-chrome is no longer running so ChromeDriver is assuming that Chrome has crashed

Effectively, you code block will be:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.binary_location=r'C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path='/home/kela/test_dir/chromedriver.exe')
driver.get('http://google.com/')

Additionally, ensure the following:

• ChromeDriver is having executable permission for non-root users.

• As you are using ChromeDriver v75.0 ensure that you have the recommended version of the Google Chrome v75.0 as:

  ---------ChromeDriver 75.0.3770.8 (2019-04-29)---------
  Supports Chrome version 75
  

• Execute the Selenium Test as non-root user.