How to use headless chrome with capybara and selenium

Question

Chrome version: 59.0.3071.104

Using Cucumber, Capybara, Selenium to implement automation testing with Headless Chrome.

features/support/env.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'capybara/cucumber'

Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, :browser => :chrome, args: ['headless'])
end

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium_chrome

When running a cucumber test, it says:

WARN Selenium [DEPRECATION] :args or :switches is deprecated. Use Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options#add_argument instead.

What is the correct way to use capybara and selenium with Headless Chrome. Thank you.

EDIT 1: I tried the following using Ruby-Binding, Capybara and Working Example. But it gives errors as well.

require 'rubygems'
require 'capybara/cucumber'
require 'selenium-webdriver'

Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
  options = Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new
  options.add_argument('--headless')
  driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :chrome, options: options
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(
    app, 
    browser: :chrome, 
    desired_capabilities: driver
  )
end

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium_chrome

Error:

> undefined method `each' for
> #<Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities:0xd13baac> (NoMethodError)

Edit 2: Download the latest ChromeDriver 2.30

Using the example from ChromeDriver Capabilities & Chrome Command Line Switches I get an error.

Net::ReadTimeout (Net::ReadTimeout)

require 'rubygems'
require 'capybara/cucumber'
require 'selenium-webdriver'

Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
  caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.chrome(
    "chromeOptions" => {
      "binary" => "/chromedriver_win32/chromedriver.exe",
      "args" => [ "--disable-web-security", "--headless" ]
    }
  )  
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(
    app, 
    browser: :chrome, 
    desired_capabilities: caps
  )
end

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium_chrome

Answer 1

1) Make sure you don't have another registered driver, I made this mistake myself and had an iphone driver, which was using the args in the old way, that's why I was getting the warning.

2) Make sure you have Chrome version 57+ on Linux, 59+ on macOS or 60+ on Windows;

3) Add/update the gem selenium-webdriver;

4) Add the following driver to your spec_helper.rb or rails_helper.rb:

Capybara.register_driver :chrome do |app|
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new app, browser: :chrome,
    options: Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new(args: %w[headless disable-gpu])
end

Capybara.javascript_driver = :chrome

Answer 2

Update 2020-02-01

Support for ChromeDriver ended on Mar 24, 2019, creator recommended everybody to move to https://github.com/titusfortner/webdrivers, having said that, the following is a configuration that worked for me:

require "test_helper"

class ApplicationSystemTestCase < ActionDispatch::SystemTestCase
  driver = ENV['DRIVER'] ? ENV['DRIVER'].to_sym : :headless_chrome
  driven_by :selenium, using: driver, screen_size: [1400, 1400]
end

When running your tests, you can also specify a different driver by passing the DRIVER variable like:

$ DRIVER=firefox bin/rails test:system
$ DRIVER=headless_firefox bin/rails test:system
$ DRIVER=chrome bin/rails test:system
$ DRIVER=headless_chrome bin/rails test:system

---

Previous Answer

The simplest way to run headless Chrome with Rails apps is to add the following gems to the Gemfile

gem 'chromedriver-helper'
gem 'selenium-webdriver'

And update your application_system_test_case.rb with the following:

require "test_helper"

class ApplicationSystemTestCase < ActionDispatch::SystemTestCase
  driver = ENV['CHROME_HEADLESS'] == 'false' ? :selenium_chrome : :selenium_chrome_headless
  driven_by driver, screen_size: [1400, 1400]
end

There is no need to pass args as the drivers are already available to use, available drivers are :rack_test, :selenium, :selenium_chrome, :selenium_chrome_headless.

You can run Headless Chrome

$ bin/rails test:system

Or you can also run Chrome and see test running on it

$ CHROME_HEADLESS=false bin/rails test:system

Answer 3

Windows support is coming in Chrome 60.

Download "Chome Canary" and give the installation path as a binary in chromeOptions.

Download the latest "chromedriver" and add to path in Environment Variables.

require 'rubygems'
require 'capybara/cucumber'
require 'selenium-webdriver'

Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
  caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.chrome(
    "chromeOptions" => {
      "binary" => "C:/Users/YOURUSERNAME/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome SxS/Application/chrome.exe",
      "args" => [ "--disable-web-security", "--headless", "--disable-gpu" ]
    }
  )
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(
    app, 
    browser: :chrome, 
    desired_capabilities: caps
  )
end

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium_chrome

Answer 4

I could get this working with the current version of Chrome, but it would display a blank window. If you want to get rid of that, then you need to use the "Chrome Canary" build.

The code below is a combination of the answers that @lucas-caton and @shawn-derik, but solves the issue I mentioned above.

Capybara.register_driver :chrome do |app|
  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(
    app,
    browser: :chrome,
    options: Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new(
      binary: 'C:/Users/USERNAME/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome SxS/Application/chrome.exe',
      args: %w[no-sandbox headless disable-gpu]
    )
  )
end