WebDriverException: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary error with Selenium in Python for older versions of Google Chrome

Question

For compatibility reasons I prefer to use Chrome version 55.0.2883.75 with Chromedriver v. 2.26. I downloaded the older version of chrome from https://www.slimjet.com/chrome/google-chrome-old-version.php and Chromedriver 2.26 from https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html?path=2.26/.

I am using the following code to attempt to set my Chrome binary location:

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

options = Options()
options.binary_location = "C:\\Program Files\\Chrome\\chrome64_55.0.2883.75\\chrome.exe"
driver = webdriver.Chrome('chromedriver.exe', chrome_options = options)

However, when I attempt to launch the WebDriver Python returns the following error:

WebDriverException: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary
(Driver info: chromedriver=2.26.436362
(5476ec6bf7ccbada1734a0cdec7d570bb042aa30),platform=Windows NT 10.0.14393 x86_64)

I have tried searching through similar questions and answers but have not had any luck so far. Any help is greatly appreciated - thank you in advance!

Solution 1

This error message...

WebDriverException: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to find the Chrome binary in the default location for your system.

As per the ChromeDriver - Requirements:

The server expects you to have Chrome installed in the default location for each system:

OS	Expected Location of Chrome
Linux	/usr/bin/google-chrome1
Mac	/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome
Windows XP	%HOMEPATH%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
Windows Vista and newer	C:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

¹ For Linux systems, the ChromeDriver expects /usr/bin/google-chrome to be a symlink to the actual Chrome binary.

---

Using a Chrome executable in a non-standard location

However you can also override the default Chrome binary location as follows:

To use Chrome version 55.x installed in non standard location through ChromeDriver v2.26 you can use the following code:

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

options = Options()
options.binary_location = "C:\\Program Files\\Chrome\\chrome64_55.0.2883.75\\chrome.exe"
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options = options, executable_path=r'C:\path\to\chromedriver.exe')
driver.get('http://google.com/')
print("Chrome Browser Invoked")
driver.quit()

Related Docs

---

Reference

You can find a detailed discussion in:

• Is Chrome installation needed or only chromedriver when using Selenium?

Solution 2

What happened to me is that I didn't have chrome, the main browser, installed. Download the browser and it fixes this issue.

Comments

[Sasha]

Try use single forward slashes instead of double back slashes

[Venetian]

Thanks, but both single and double forward slashes return the same error above.

[Venetian]

That is for the path to the webdriver binary, no? I think what I need is how to correctly specify the chrome binary.

[Venetian]

This worked, thank you. For future reference, I put both the chrome and chromedriver executables in the same directory.

[Nhân Nguyễn]

where can I download chrome binary for linux?

[Raketenolli]

What about Windows 10? It does not work with a link named "chrome.exe" in the path shown for Vista.

[dtar]

Update 2019: use options=options instead of chrome_options=options

[gumuruh]

i wish i could switch to my own cefsharp embed on panel iinstead of the chrome installed.

[Peter Smith]

I read another comment that said I might need to install Chrome itself, not just the wrapper from selenium called 'chromedriver' -- the .so on my Chromebook. so i finally managed to run the following command to install my Chrome executable, and then things worked. it's weird to think you have to (re?)install Chrome on a Chromebook, but the Linux VM didn't seem to be able to find it. maybe I just didn't know where to look. > sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

[Steve Smith]

It's probably a version thing, but on my system the setting is options.BinaryLocation.

[saadlulu]

oh thank you, I have been using Brave browser, thinking "yeah this is chrome" but no it's not. downloading actual chrome fixed it. thanks

[Ethan]

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review