NotADirectoryError: [WinError 267] The directory name is invalid error while invoking Firefox through Selenium Python

Question

I'm trying to invoke a firefox browser using Selenium webdriver from below python code..

from selenium import webdriver

# Initializing the WebDriver for Firefox browser
driver = webdriver.Firefox("C:\\selenium\\mozilla\\geckodriver.exe")
driver.set_page_load_timeout(30)
driver.maximize_window()
driver.get("https://www.google.com/")

# Closing the reference
driver.quit()

but it is always throwing an error like below, however this is working for Chrome browser.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Python/Practice/FirefoxSample.py", line 8, in <module>
    driver = webdriver.Firefox("C:\\selenium\\mozilla\\geckodriver.exe")
  File "C:\Python\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\firefox\webdriver.py", line 139, in __init__
    firefox_profile = FirefoxProfile(firefox_profile)
  File "C:\Python\venv\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\firefox\firefox_profile.py", line 78, in __init__
    ignore=shutil.ignore_patterns("parent.lock", "lock", ".parentlock"))
  File "C:\Python\Python36-32\lib\shutil.py", line 309, in copytree
    names = os.listdir(src)
NotADirectoryError: [WinError 267] The directory name is invalid: 'C:\\selenium\\mozilla\\geckodriver.exe'

Process finished with exit code 1

What am I missing here?

I have also tried upgrading the selenium package using the pip

pip install -U selenium

Additional info: running the Firefox latest version (59.0.2), Python (3.6.5) and Selenium Gecko webdriver (0.20.0). Not sure if anything is needed to help on this.

Solution

You need to take care of a couple of things as follows :

• You need to pass the Key executable_path along with the Value referring to the absolute path of the GeckoDriver through single backslash i.e. \ along with the raw i.e. r switch as follows :

  from selenium import webdriver
  
  driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path=r'C:\selenium\mozilla\geckodriver.exe')
  driver.set_page_load_timeout(30)
  driver.get("https://www.google.com/")
  driver.quit()
  

• Clean your Project Workspace through your IDE and Rebuild your project with required dependencies only.

• Use CCleaner tool to wipe off all the OS chores before and after the execution of your Test Suite.
• If your base Web Client version is too old, then uninstall it through Revo Uninstaller and install a recent GA and released version of Web Client.
• Take a System Reboot.
• Execute your @Test.

Comments

[CodingMatters]

I found this while testing randomly loading chrome/edge/firefox drivers, turns out chrome & edge do not need executable_path explicitly assigned while firefox does. Leaving this comment so others can avoid having to rediscover that trap.