Error selenium common exceptions WebDriverException Message chromedriver executable needs to be in PATH

Question

I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\ishaq\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 74, in start
    stdout=self.log_file, stderr=self.log_file)
  File "C:\Users\ishaq\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\subprocess.py", line 707, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "C:\Users\ishaq\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\subprocess.py", line 992, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/ishaq/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python36/headless.py", line 9, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=os.path.abspath("chromedriver"),   chrome_options=chrome_options)
  File "C:\Users\ishaq\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\chrome\webdriver.py", line 62, in __init__
    self.service.start()
  File "C:\Users\ishaq\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\common\service.py", line 81, in start
    os.path.basename(self.path), self.start_error_message)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in PATH. Please see https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/home

And my script is:

import os  
from selenium import webdriver  
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys  
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options 

chrome_options = Options()  
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")  
chrome_options.binary_location = 
r'C:\Users\ishaq\Desktop\chrome\chromedriver.exe'    
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=os.path.abspath("chromedriver"),   
chrome_options=chrome_options)  
driver.get("http://www.duo.com")

magnifying_glass = driver.find_element_by_id("js-open-icon")  
if magnifying_glass.is_displayed():  
  magnifying_glass.click()  
else:  
  menu_button = driver.find_element_by_css_selector(".menu-trigger.local")  
  menu_button.click() 

search_field = driver.find_element_by_id("site-search")  
search_field.clear()  
search_field.send_keys("Olabode")  
search_field.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)  
assert "Looking Back at Android Security in 2016" in driver.page_source
driver.close()

Comments

hey brother,

can i get ur mail ID so that we ccan discuss about the webdriver problems

Answer 1

You can also handle this error with python script:

In command line:

pip install webdriver-manager

Python script:

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())

Hope this helps!

Join our Selenium Certification training online and become the expert.

Thanks!

Comments

Thank you Sir, it works!

---

Hi, this is one of the few solutions that has worked for me perfectly! Thank you.

Do you know how I prevent Chrome from launching every time I run my code with this ChromeDriverManager?
I would only like to see the web scraping results, not the web pages displayed in the Chrome browser.

---

Hello, @scrapes. I hope you are doing well.

Please do register at Edureka Community and upvote the answer if it has helped you.

---

Hi Srujan,

I am able to install webdriver-manager using command "pip install --user webdriver-manager".

But I am still getting error.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'webdriver_manager'.

Below is my code.

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
import time

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install()).

Could you please provide your suggestion.

---

 Make sure you have properly installed selenium as well. If not, use the following to install it,

python -m pip install -U selenium

Later use your code to install web driver.

---

It works, thanks

---

I am getting this error while trying to install webdriver:

Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using '"c:\users\dibyajyoti.a.sahoo\appdata\local\programs\python\python37-32\python.exe"  "C:\Users\dibyajyoti.a.sahoo\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37-32\Scripts\pip.exe" install webdriver-manager': The system cannot find the file specified.

---

Hey @Dibya, have u tried srujan's solution?

Also refer to https://www.edureka.co/blog/selenium-using-python/

Hope this helps!

---

I am getting following with above code can anyone help here?

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "chrome_code.py", line 2, in <module>
    from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
  File "/home/delhivery/Desktop/lambdatest/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/webdriver_manager/chrome.py", line 4, in <module>
    from webdriver_manager.driver import ChromeDriver
  File "/home/delhivery/Desktop/lambdatest/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/webdriver_manager/driver.py", line 77
    self.auth_header = {'Authorization': f'token {self._os_token}'}
                                                                 ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

---

Hello @ Akshat Garg,

Have  you tried to import the package called webdriver_manager? if not you can installed it by:

pip install webdriver_manager

Also this can be done automatically using webdriver-manager

Note:Our system needs to know where to locate the chromedriver.exe. You could put it into a directory that is in your system's PATH variable, or just tell the constructor where it is:

browser = webdriver.Chrome('C:\\path\\to\\chromedriver.exe')

---

THIS WORKED WONDERS!!!! THANK YOU

---

Hi, thank you for your contribution to the Edureka Community.

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Cheers!

Answer 2

Very basic error. The main issue is with the path and driver execuable. So it's clear from the error that the Python client was unable to locate the chromedriver binary. When your mentioning the path of the driver, append it with the extension. Like this:

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=os.path.abspath("chromedriver.exe")

For details, You can even check out Selenium concepts with the Selenium online training.

Comments

Thank you guys! The one with green tick worked for me :)

---

Hey, Please do upvote the answer in case you found it helpful.

Answer 3

You can test if it actually is in the PATH, if you open a cmd and type in chromedriver (assuming your chromedriver executable is still named like this) and hit Enter. If Starting ChromeDriver 2.15.322448 is appearing, the PATH is set appropriately and there is something else going wrong.

Alternatively, you can use a direct path to the chromedriver like this:

 driver = webdriver.Chrome('/path/to/chromedriver') 

So in your specific case:

 driver = webdriver.Chrome("C:/Users/michael/Downloads/chromedriver_win32/chromedriver.exe"

Answer 4

You can download ChromeDriver here: 

Then you have multiple options:

• add it to your system path
• put it in the same directory as your python script

• specify the location directly via executable_path

  driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path='C:/path/to/chromedriver.exe')