Can Selenium interact with an existing browser session

Question

Does anybody know if Selenium  WebDriver preferably  is able to communicate with and act through a browser that is already running before launching a Selenium Client    I mean if Selenium is able to comunicate with a browser without using the Selenium Server  with could be an Internet Explorer launched manually for example

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This is a duplicate answer    Reconnect to a driver in python selenium    This is applicable on all drivers and for java api    open a driver   driver   webdriver Firefox     python    extract to session id and  url from driver object    url   driver command executor  url         http   127 0 0 1 60622 hub  session id   driver session id              4e167f26-dc1d-4f51-a207-f761eaf73c31     Use these two parameter to connect to your driver    driver   webdriver Remote command executor url desired capabilities     driver close       this prevents the dummy browser driver session id   session id   And you are connected to your driver again   driver get  http   www mrsmart in

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It appears that this feature is not officially supported by selenium  But  Tarun Lalwani has created working Java code to provide the feature  Refer - http   tarunlalwani com post reusing-existing-browser-session-selenium-java  Here is the working sample code  copied from the above link  import org openqa selenium chrome ChromeDriver  import org openqa selenium remote    import org openqa selenium remote http W3CHttpCommandCodec  import org openqa selenium remote http W3CHttpResponseCodec   import java io IOException  import java lang reflect Field  import java net URL  import java util Collections   public class TestClass       public static RemoteWebDriver createDriverFromSession final SessionId sessionId  URL command executor           CommandExecutor executor   new HttpCommandExecutor command executor                  Override             public Response execute Command command  throws IOException                   Response response   null                  if  command getName       quot newSession quot                         response   new Response                        response setSessionId sessionId toString                         response setStatus 0                       response setValue Collections  lt String  String gt emptyMap                          try                           Field commandCodec   null                          commandCodec   this getClass   getSuperclass   getDeclaredField  quot commandCodec quot                            commandCodec setAccessible true                           commandCodec set this  new W3CHttpCommandCodec                              Field responseCodec   null                          responseCodec   this getClass   getSuperclass   getDeclaredField  quot responseCodec quot                            responseCodec setAccessible true                           responseCodec set this  new W3CHttpResponseCodec                           catch  NoSuchFieldException e                            e printStackTrace                          catch  IllegalAccessException e                            e printStackTrace                                             else                       response   super execute command                                     return response                                    return new RemoteWebDriver executor  new DesiredCapabilities                public static void main String    args             ChromeDriver driver   new ChromeDriver            HttpCommandExecutor executor    HttpCommandExecutor  driver getCommandExecutor            URL url   executor getAddressOfRemoteServer            SessionId session id   driver getSessionId              RemoteWebDriver driver2   createDriverFromSession session id  url           driver2 get  quot http   tarunlalwani com quot             Your test needs to have a RemoteWebDriver created from an existing browser session  To create that Driver  you only need to know the  quot session info quot   i e  address of the server  local in our case  where the browser is running and the browser session id  To get these details  we can create one browser session with selenium  open the desired page  and then finally run the actual test script  I don t know if there is a way to get session info for a session which was not created by selenium  Here is an example of session info  Address of remote server   http   localhost 24266  The port number is different for each session  Session Id   534c7b561aacdd6dc319f60fed27d9d6

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This is pretty easy using the JavaScript selenium-webdriver client   First  make sure you have a WebDriver server running  For example  download ChromeDriver  then run chromedriver --port 9515   Second  create the driver like this   var driver   new webdriver Builder       withCapabilities webdriver Capabilities chrome        usingServer  http   localhost 9515        lt - this     build      Here s a complete example   var webdriver   require  selenium-webdriver     var driver   new webdriver Builder       withCapabilities webdriver Capabilities chrome        usingServer  http   localhost 9515       build     driver get  http   www google com    driver findElement webdriver By name  q    sendKeys  webdriver    driver findElement webdriver By name  btnG    click    driver getTitle   then function title       console log title         driver quit

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This is a pretty old feature request  Allow webdriver to attach to a running browser   So it s officially not supported   However  there is some working code which claims to support this  https   web archive org web 20171214043703 http   tarunlalwani com post reusing-existing-browser-session-selenium-java

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Javascript solution    I have successfully attached to existing browser session using this function  webdriver WebDriver attachToSession executor  session id     Documentation can be found here

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I got a solution in python  I modified the webdriver class bassed on PersistenBrowser class that I found     https   github com axelPalmerin personal commit fabddb38a39f378aa113b0cb8d33391d5f91dca5  replace the webdriver module  usr local lib python2 7 dist-packages selenium webdriver remote webdriver py  Ej  to use   from selenium webdriver common desired capabilities import DesiredCapabilities  runDriver   sys argv 1  sessionId   sys argv 2   def setBrowser        if eval runDriver           webdriver   w Remote command executor  http   localhost 4444 wd hub                        desired capabilities DesiredCapabilities CHROME                             else          webdriver   w Remote command executor  http   localhost 4444 wd hub                                desired capabilities DesiredCapabilities CHROME                               session id sessionId       url   webdriver command executor  url     session id   webdriver session id     print url     print session id     return webdriver

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It is possible  But you have to hack it a little  there is a code  What you have to do is to run stand alone server and  patch  RemoteWebDriver  public class CustomRemoteWebDriver   RemoteWebDriver       public static bool newSession      public static string capPath   Path Combine AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   TestFiles    tmp    sessionCap        public static string sessiodIdPath   Path Combine AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   TestFiles    tmp    sessionid         public CustomRemoteWebDriver Uri remoteAddress             base remoteAddress  new DesiredCapabilities                     protected override Response Execute DriverCommand driverCommandToExecute  Dictionary lt string  object gt  parameters                if  driverCommandToExecute    DriverCommand NewSession                        if   newSession                                var capText   File ReadAllText capPath                   var sidText   File ReadAllText sessiodIdPath                    var cap   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt Dictionary lt string  object gt  gt  capText                   return new Response                                       SessionId   sidText                      Value   cap                                              else                               var response   base Execute driverCommandToExecute  parameters                   var dictionary    Dictionary lt string  object gt   response Value                  File WriteAllText capPath  JsonConvert SerializeObject dictionary                    File WriteAllText sessiodIdPath  response SessionId                   return response                                  else                       var response   base Execute driverCommandToExecute  parameters               return response

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Inspired by Eric s answer  here is my solution to this problem for selenium 3 7 0  Compared with the solution at http   tarunlalwani com post reusing-existing-browser-session-selenium   the advantage is that there won t be a blank browser window each time I connect to the existing session     import warnings  from selenium common exceptions import WebDriverException from selenium webdriver remote errorhandler import ErrorHandler from selenium webdriver remote file detector import LocalFileDetector from selenium webdriver remote mobile import Mobile from selenium webdriver remote remote connection import RemoteConnection from selenium webdriver remote switch to import SwitchTo from selenium webdriver remote webdriver import WebDriver     This webdriver can directly attach to an existing session  class AttachableWebDriver WebDriver       def   init   self  command executor  http   127 0 0 1 4444 wd hub                    desired capabilities None  browser profile None  proxy None                   keep alive False  file detector None  session id None                       Create a new driver that will issue commands using the wire protocol            Args           - command executor - Either a string representing URL of the remote server or a custom              remote connection RemoteConnection object  Defaults to  http   127 0 0 1 4444 wd hub            - desired capabilities - A dictionary of capabilities to request when              starting the browser session  Required parameter           - browser profile - A selenium webdriver firefox firefox profile FirefoxProfile object               Only used if Firefox is requested  Optional           - proxy - A selenium webdriver common proxy Proxy object  The browser session will              be started with given proxy settings  if possible  Optional           - keep alive - Whether to configure remote connection RemoteConnection to use              HTTP keep-alive  Defaults to False           - file detector - Pass custom file detector object during instantiation  If None               then default LocalFileDetector   will be used                      if desired capabilities is None              raise WebDriverException  Desired Capabilities can t be None           if not isinstance desired capabilities  dict               raise WebDriverException  Desired Capabilities must be a dictionary           if proxy is not None              warnings warn  Please use FirefoxOptions to set proxy                             DeprecationWarning              proxy add to capabilities desired capabilities          self command executor   command executor         if type self command executor  is bytes or isinstance self command executor  str               self command executor   RemoteConnection command executor  keep alive keep alive           self command executor  commands  GET SESSION       GET     session  sessionId      added          self  is remote   True         self session id   session id    added         self capabilities              self error handler   ErrorHandler           self start client           if browser profile is not None              warnings warn  Please use FirefoxOptions to set browser profile                             DeprecationWarning           if session id              self connect to session desired capabilities     added         else              self start session desired capabilities  browser profile           self  switch to   SwitchTo self          self  mobile   Mobile self          self file detector   file detector or LocalFileDetector            self w3c   True    added hardcoded      def connect to session self  desired capabilities           response   self execute  GET SESSION                  desiredCapabilities   desired capabilities               sessionId   self session id                       self session id   response  sessionId           self capabilities   response  value     To use it   if use existing session      browser   AttachableWebDriver command executor   http    s 4444 wd hub    ip                                     desired capabilities  DesiredCapabilities INTERNETEXPLORER                                     session id session id      self logger info  Using existing browser with session id     format session id   else      browser   AttachableWebDriver command executor   http    s 4444 wd hub    ip                                     desired capabilities  DesiredCapabilities INTERNETEXPLORER       self logger info  New session id        format browser session id

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I m using Rails   Cucumber   Selenium Webdriver   PhantomJS  and I ve been using a monkey-patched version of Selenium Webdriver  which keeps PhantomJS browser open between test runs  See this blog post  http   blog sharetribe com 2014 04 07 faster-cucumber-startup-keep-phantomjs-browser-open-between-tests   See also my answer to this post  How do I execute a command on already opened browser from a ruby file

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All the solutions so far were lacking of certain functionality  Here is my solution   public class AttachedWebDriver extends RemoteWebDriver        public AttachedWebDriver URL url  String sessionId            super            setSessionId sessionId           setCommandExecutor new HttpCommandExecutor url                 Override             public Response execute Command command  throws IOException                   if  command getName       newSession                         return super execute command                                     return super execute new Command getSessionId     getCapabilities                                       startSession new DesiredCapabilities

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This snippet successfully allows to reuse existing browser instance yet avoiding raising the duplicate browser  Found at Tarun Lalwani s blog   from selenium import webdriver from selenium webdriver remote webdriver import WebDriver    executor url   driver command executor  url   session id   driver session id  def attach to session executor url  session id       original execute   WebDriver execute     def new command execute self  command  params None           if command     newSession                 Mock the response             return   success   0   value   None   sessionId   session id          else              return original execute self  command  params        Patch the function before creating the driver object     WebDriver execute   new command execute     driver   webdriver Remote command executor executor url  desired capabilities         driver session id   session id       Replace the patched function with original function     WebDriver execute   original execute     return driver  bro   attach to session  http   127 0 0 1 64092    8de24f3bfbec01ba0d82a7946df1d1c3   bro get  http   ya ru

[selenium] Can Selenium interact with an existing browser session?

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