Establish a connection to the current active session using Selenium JavaScript WebDriver

Question

Establish a connection to the current active session using Selenium JavaScript WebDriver

When I'm using Node.js along with the selenium-webdriver package for running my tests, a new session is started and a new window opens each time a test begins. I've been attempting to retrieve the session Id and make use of it later by calling getSession() (reference link )

var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver');
var SeleniumServer = require('selenium-webdriver/remote').SeleniumServer;

var server = new SeleniumServer('./seleniumServer/selenium-server-standalone-2.43.1.jar', {
    port: 4444
});
server.start();

var driver = new webdriver.Builder()
        .usingServer(server.address())
        .withCapabilities(webdriver.Capabilities.firefox())
        .build();

console.log(driver.getSession());

However, this is resulting in an exception being thrown:

getSession();
^
TypeError: Object [object Object] has no method 'getSession'
    at Object.<anonymous> (\testing\demo_1.js:14:3)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
    at startup (node.js:119:16)
    at node.js:906:3

Could someone please help me identify what's causing the issue and guide me on how to obtain and set the selenium session id?
Furthermore, I am eager to learn how to utilize the sessionId for connecting to an existing browser session.

javascript session selenium

Answer 1

Answer №1

Credit goes to gm2008 for pointing me in the right direction with their insightful response. I encountered an issue where the attachToSession function was appearing as undefined, possibly due to an update in implementation (I am utilizing version 4.0.0-alpha.1 of selenium-webdriver). Nonetheless, I managed to achieve the desired functionality using the TypeScript code below:

import wd, { WebDriver, Session } from 'selenium-webdriver'
import { HttpClient, Executor } from 'selenium-webdriver/http'

// The server URL is obtained from running selenium-standalone on my local machine
const server: string = 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub'

async function createNewBrowserSessionId(): Promise<string> {
  const browser: WebDriver = new wd.Builder()
    .withCapabilities(wd.Capabilities.chrome())
    .usingServer(server)
    .build()

  const session: Session = await browser.getSession()

  return session.getId()
}

async function accessExistingBrowser(sessionId: string): Promise<WebDriver> {
  const client: HttpClient = new HttpClient(server)
  const executor: Executor = new Executor(client)
  const session: Session = new Session(sessionId, wd.Capabilities.chrome())

  return new WebDriver(session, executor)
}

async function executeOperationsOnBrowser(browser: WebDriver): Promise<void> {
  await browser.get('https://www.google.com/')
}

async function shutdownBrowser(browser: WebDriver): Promise<void> {
  await browser.close()
}

async function establishConnectionAndPerformTasks(): Promise<void> {
  const sessionId: string = await createNewBrowserSessionId()
  const existingBrowser: WebDriver = await accessExistingBrowser(sessionId)

  await executeOperationsOnBrowser(existingBrowser)
  await shutdownBrowser(existingBrowser)
}

establishConnectionAndPerformTasks()

If you maintain the session open and have a method of sharing the ID, you can connect to the existing Session even after the script that initializes it has finished executing. The shutdownBrowser() function can be utilized when you are prepared to perform cleanup.

Answer 2

Credit goes to gm2008 for pointing me in the right direction with their insightful response. I encountered an issue where the attachToSession function was appearing as undefined, possibly due to an update in implementation (I am utilizing version 4.0.0-alpha.1 of selenium-webdriver). Nonetheless, I managed to achieve the desired functionality using the TypeScript code below:

import wd, { WebDriver, Session } from 'selenium-webdriver'
import { HttpClient, Executor } from 'selenium-webdriver/http'

// The server URL is obtained from running selenium-standalone on my local machine
const server: string = 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub'

async function createNewBrowserSessionId(): Promise<string> {
  const browser: WebDriver = new wd.Builder()
    .withCapabilities(wd.Capabilities.chrome())
    .usingServer(server)
    .build()

  const session: Session = await browser.getSession()

  return session.getId()
}

async function accessExistingBrowser(sessionId: string): Promise<WebDriver> {
  const client: HttpClient = new HttpClient(server)
  const executor: Executor = new Executor(client)
  const session: Session = new Session(sessionId, wd.Capabilities.chrome())

  return new WebDriver(session, executor)
}

async function executeOperationsOnBrowser(browser: WebDriver): Promise<void> {
  await browser.get('https://www.google.com/')
}

async function shutdownBrowser(browser: WebDriver): Promise<void> {
  await browser.close()
}

async function establishConnectionAndPerformTasks(): Promise<void> {
  const sessionId: string = await createNewBrowserSessionId()
  const existingBrowser: WebDriver = await accessExistingBrowser(sessionId)

  await executeOperationsOnBrowser(existingBrowser)
  await shutdownBrowser(existingBrowser)
}

establishConnectionAndPerformTasks()

If you maintain the session open and have a method of sharing the ID, you can connect to the existing Session even after the script that initializes it has finished executing. The shutdownBrowser() function can be utilized when you are prepared to perform cleanup.

Answer 3

Answer №2

If you have successfully built your webdriver, the driver object should now include a method called getSession(). The documentation for getSession() can be found here.

However, it's important to note that what is returned by getSession() is actually a promise. This means that you won't receive the session id directly from the return value. To get the session id, you need to do the following:

 driver.getSession()
                .then( function(session){
                    var session_id = session.getId();
                });

Chances are, you will need to save the session id in a file. Then, when running the program again, you can attach to this session id using the following function:

browser = webdriver.WebDriver.attachToSession(...);

The documentation for the above function can be found here.

However, one issue with the attachToSession() call is that it doesn't provide feedback on whether it was successful. As a workaround, I suggest calling browser.getTitle() using the returned WebDriver object and waiting for it to resolve or reject. This way, you'll know if you've successfully attached to the session id.

Setting up the webdriver:

In response to user3789620's question, here is the code snippet for setting up the webdriver:

var webdriver_server = 'http://localhost:9515', // chromedriver.exe serves at this port 
chrome = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome'),
options = new chrome.Options(),
webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
Http = require('selenium-webdriver/http');
options.setChromeBinaryPath(your_chrome_binary_path);

var browser = new webdriver.Builder()
  .withCapabilities(webdriver.Capabilities.chrome())
  .setChromeOptions(options)
  .usingServer(webdriver_server)
  .build()

if (typeof saved_session_id !== 'undefined' && saved_session_id !== "") {
  console.log("Going to attach to existing session of id: " + saved_session_id);
  client = new Http.HttpClient(webdriver_server);
  executor = new Http.Executor(client);
  browser = webdriver.WebDriver.attachToSession(executor, saved_session_id);
}

Answer 4

If you have successfully built your webdriver, the driver object should now include a method called getSession(). The documentation for getSession() can be found here.

However, it's important to note that what is returned by getSession() is actually a promise. This means that you won't receive the session id directly from the return value. To get the session id, you need to do the following:

 driver.getSession()
                .then( function(session){
                    var session_id = session.getId();
                });

Chances are, you will need to save the session id in a file. Then, when running the program again, you can attach to this session id using the following function:

browser = webdriver.WebDriver.attachToSession(...);

The documentation for the above function can be found here.

However, one issue with the attachToSession() call is that it doesn't provide feedback on whether it was successful. As a workaround, I suggest calling browser.getTitle() using the returned WebDriver object and waiting for it to resolve or reject. This way, you'll know if you've successfully attached to the session id.

Setting up the webdriver:

In response to user3789620's question, here is the code snippet for setting up the webdriver:

var webdriver_server = 'http://localhost:9515', // chromedriver.exe serves at this port 
chrome = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome'),
options = new chrome.Options(),
webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
Http = require('selenium-webdriver/http');
options.setChromeBinaryPath(your_chrome_binary_path);

var browser = new webdriver.Builder()
  .withCapabilities(webdriver.Capabilities.chrome())
  .setChromeOptions(options)
  .usingServer(webdriver_server)
  .build()

if (typeof saved_session_id !== 'undefined' && saved_session_id !== "") {
  console.log("Going to attach to existing session of id: " + saved_session_id);
  client = new Http.HttpClient(webdriver_server);
  executor = new Http.Executor(client);
  browser = webdriver.WebDriver.attachToSession(executor, saved_session_id);
}

Answer 5

Answer №3

If you want to keep your sessions active, consider using cookies for persistence. The webdriver.WebDriver.Options documentation can provide guidance on this. One method is to store the cookies in an external file before ending the session, then loading them from that file each time you start a new test.

Answer 6

If you want to keep your sessions active, consider using cookies for persistence. The webdriver.WebDriver.Options documentation can provide guidance on this. One method is to store the cookies in an external file before ending the session, then loading them from that file each time you start a new test.

Answer 7

Answer №4

If you encounter issues, consider utilizing attachToSession() in this manner:

webdriver.attachToSession(sessionId);

For additional information, refer to the documentation.

Answer 8

If you encounter issues, consider utilizing attachToSession() in this manner:

webdriver.attachToSession(sessionId);

For additional information, refer to the documentation.

Establish a connection to the current active session using Selenium JavaScript WebDriver

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

Answer №4

Similar questions

How can you prevent the 'Script not responding' error when using Reverse AJAX / Comet?

Rendering in ThreeJS Causes IE11 to Crash

Creating a JavaScript function to download specific sections of an HTML page

Image uploading using AJAX onchange event

Troubleshooting a JQuery AJAX Autocomplete problem involving PHP and MySQL

The controller failed to return a value when utilizing the factory

Revise if a specific file is not being called by AJAX

Creating static HTML files for non-static pages using Next.js SSR/ISR

Is there a way to trigger a function upon the loading of a template in Angular 2?

Looking for giphy link within a v-for loop (Vue.js)

The WYSIWYG niceEdit editor is incompatible with textareas generated through ajax-php calls, causing it to malfunction

Navigate pages in Python Selenium without directly relying on the current URL

Guide to updating 2 iframes simultaneously with a single link/button using HTML and JavaScript

The new mui v5 Dialog is having trouble accepting custom styled widths

"Patience is key when it comes to waiting for components to render

When utilizing React, I generated an HTML page with a distinct .js file, however, encountered two unexpected errors

Updating the rotation of a grandchild in Three.js Object3D

Discovering the audio file URL hidden within javascript code

What methods can be used to modify element attributes in Python?

Is it possible to enlarge pixel art in EaselJS without causing blurriness?