Announcing upcoming changes to the ChromeDriver release process

[Mathias Bynens]

Hello ChromeDriver users,

Until now, ChromeDriver had its own release process, separate from the Chrome release process. We’ll continue to follow this process for the M114 release later this month.

After the M114 release, we’re making some changes to fully integrate ChromeDriver into the Chrome release process. Starting with M115, across all release channels (Stable, Beta, Dev, Canary), every Chrome release that gets pushed to users automatically gets a correspondingly-versioned ChromeDriver release, available for download via Chrome for Testing infrastructure.

Here’s what will be changing as of M115:

1. We’ll no longer provide manually curated release notes.

1. Instead, view the commit history in your local Chromium checkout via git log chromium/src/chrome/test/chromedriver or online via https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commits/main/chrome/test/chromedriver.

2. We’ll no longer update the ChromeDriver website for every release.

1. Instead, consult the Chrome for Testing availability dashboard to view the latest Chrome + ChromeDriver releases per release channel (Stable, Beta, Dev, Canary).

3. We’ll no longer announce new releases via this email group.

1. Instead, consult the Chrome for Testing availability dashboard to view the latest Chrome + ChromeDriver releases per release channel (Stable, Beta, Dev, Canary).

2. Please let us know if the dashboard and its JSON APIs aren’t sufficient for you to stay informed on new releases.

4. The download location for ChromeDriver releases will change.

1. This applies to both the old ChromeDriver Stable + Beta downloads at https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/ as well as the old Canary downloads at https://chromedriver.chromium.org/chromedriver-canary. We won’t publish new downloads to these locations in the future.

2. Consult the Chrome for Testing availability dashboard to learn about the new URL format. Use @puppeteer/browsers to easily download and launch browser + driver binaries, or build your own custom solution using our JSON API endpoints.

We believe the new, automated, and aligned release process will significantly simplify the status quo, solving a number of issues:

1. It completely eliminates the manual ChromeDriver release process.

2. It aligns ChromeDriver releases with Chrome releases.

3. It makes it significantly easier for users to download matching Chrome for Testing + ChromeDriver binaries.

Thanks for your continued support of ChromeDriver, and please let us know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

The ChromeDriver Team

[Jan Hansen]

Hello Mathias.

Thank you for this information.

It looks really nice with the new JSON endpoints with download URLs.

I am expecting to download a chromedriver for win32 with the below URL obtained from the new JSON endpoint

{
"platform": "win32",
"url": "https://edgedl.me.gvt1.com/edgedl/chrome/chrome-for-testing/113.0.5672.63/win32/chrome-win32.zip"
},
But the file downloaded file does not contain the expected chromedriver  (like https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/113.0.5672.63/chromedriver_win32.zip )

Am I missing something or am I to early to use this ?

Thanks

Jan Hansen

[Jan Hansen]

Ah, I just noticed (on dashboard) that only the canary channel has chromedriver links right now.

My test was apparently a chrome release.

/Jan

[Mathias Bynens]

Exactly. For ChromeDriver assets, you’ll want to look at the `chromedriver` property under the `downloads` property in the JSON response.

ChromeDriver assets are only available from M115 onwards.

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[Jan Hansen]

Now when the release process is being modernized I have a suggestion:

Please digitally sign the chromedriver.exe file, and please enrich the *.exe with version information (file metadata)

/Jan

tirsdag den 16. maj 2023 kl. 13.49.01 UTC+2 skrev Mathias Bynens:

[San Ru]

Dear all,

It is not so clear for me as I'm not a total expert on the use of chrome driver.

However, I have developped a program for my organization that checks the chrome version and downloads automatically the right corresponding chrome driver version in case of change.

Does this change mean that each time chrome will be updated, the chrome driver will be automatically installed at the same time and the same place ? Or do we still have to download chrome driver automatically from the new end point ?

Also do the naming of the different versions will follow the same rules as previously ? 

Finally, do you know when the release of the chrome version 115 will be done ?

Thank you in advance for your help as it seems that some works are in perspective for the update of my program.

Regards

Sandrine

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[Mathias Bynens]

On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 10:21 PM San Ru <sansan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

It is not so clear for me as I'm not a total expert on the use of chrome driver.

However, I have developped a program for my organization that checks the chrome version and downloads automatically the right corresponding chrome driver version in case of change.

Does this change mean that each time chrome will be updated, the chrome driver will be automatically installed at the same time and the same place ? Or do we still have to download chrome driver automatically from the new end point ?

ChromeDriver remains a separate download. You’d still need your script that downloads it from the new location. The good news is that the part of your script that handles “finding the corresponding ChromeDriver version” will no longer be needed, since every Chrome release will have a corresponding ChromeDriver version as well. Previously, that wasn’t guaranteed.

 

Also do the naming of the different versions will follow the same rules as previously ? 

You can see the naming / URL format on the dashboard I linked to.

 

Finally, do you know when the release of the chrome version 115 will be done ?

https://chromestatus.com/roadmap says Chrome 115 is going Stable on July 12 2023. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/CAE68PjeW2v5xW7rfpD4L7D%3DohMYMV1X11G%3DTSHoAbihvD5A_Kg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Giovanni Bassi]

Mathias, thank you for the information.

I'm the maintainer of a large package that installs Chromedriver, on npm.

A few questions:

1. Will old urls (based on chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com) continue to work? Will those stop to function for versions 114 and bellow,?

2. I see all urls start with "https://edgedl.me.gvt1.com/edgedl/chrome/chrome-for-testing/" and follow a specific pattern, is this pattern stable, or could it change? And could any other parts of it change, like the part in the path where the version is, or the format for the zip files (currently: "chromedriver-linux64.zip", "chromedriver-mac-arm64.zip", "chromedriver-mac-x64.zip", "chromedriver-win32.zip", "chromedriver-win64.zip").

I'm asking because I'd like to know if we can calculate the url from the Chrome version and platform, or if we will always need to query the provided API to get the download url.

3. Same question goes to all the provided api endpoints, is the schema fixed and final? I see the endpoints are not versioned, are you planning to introduce versioning to it at some point?

Thank you,

Giovanni Bassi

[Mathias Bynens]

Hi Giovanni,

1. We don’t currently have plans to empty the chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com bucket.

2. We don’t have plans to change the URL format, and we would like to avoid it if at all possible (as it would be painful not just for your package but also for our own tooling such as @puppeteer/browsers). That said, infrastructure changes beyond our immediate control might at some point force us to. This is why we provide the `-with-downloads` JSON endpoints.

3. The schema for the endpoints mentioned here https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing#json-api-endpoints is fixed and final. We’ll only ever make backwards compatible changes (e.g. adding a new property), if any. For changes beyond that, we’d add a new JSON endpoint instead.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Thanks,

Mathias

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[RAHUL JAIN]

Hi Mathias,

Chrome.exe is working fine with selenium where I downloaded it manually based on my environment and just passed the location in my selenium with C# code. How to achieve it when its going to run on Jenkin server with multiple agent of different environment with selenium C# code? 

Can you please share some sample for same?

Regards

Rahul Jain

[Marian Kral]

Hi,
Due to changes in ChromeDriver since version 115, it is not possible to download the driver for 115 on the website.
It is only possible to download a zip file that does not contain the ChromeDriver.exe file.

Please advise how it will work from version 115 with Windows?
How should I change settings for an existing project in C#?
How to change WebDriver.cs?
Is there any guidance for this?
Please help, urgently.

Regards,
MK

Dátum: štvrtok 22. júna 2023, čas: 13:42:01 UTC+2, odosielateľ: RAHUL JAIN

[Mathias Bynens]

What URL are you using to download the ZIP file that does not contain chromedriver.exe?

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[Marian Kral]

https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/
chromewin32https://edgedl.me.gvt1.com/edgedl/chrome/chrome-for-testing/115.0.5790.98/win32/chrome-win32.zip

Dátum: streda 19. júla 2023, čas: 10:09:47 UTC+2, odosielateľ: Mathias Bynens

[Mathias Bynens]

That’s the `chrome` download, not the `chromedriver` download. You want this one:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/90b77dde-967a-4709-bc49-d480800e1cben%40googlegroups.com.

[Marian Kral]

Oh, got it, you are right.
I apologise.
Thank you very much.

Dátum: streda 19. júla 2023, čas: 10:17:36 UTC+2, odosielateľ: Mathias Bynens

[Bala Kumar]

Hello Mathias,

Can we automate the Chrome 115 (not chrome-for-testing) with this chromedriver. Or is there any restriction for this.

[Mathias Bynens]

Sure you can.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/d1f0e6a3-6885-45eb-afe7-647010003debn%40googlegroups.com.

[Bala Kumar]

What are the differences between Actual Chrome release and chrome-for-testing. Is something not included or optimized for automation performance. Is this mentioned in any blog or something.
How can I ensure that automation using chrome-for-testing is enough to replicate the real cases by users using actual chrome?

[Przemyslaw Czuj]

Hi,

Is there a way for an automation to learn which version (or download URI) of chromedriver is the current stable? The JSON only lists all of the available versions, but it doesn't tell which one is the current one.

Previous API was able to give compatible chromedriver version and it's download URI if I had chrome version.

[Mathias Bynens]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 12:12 PM 'Przemyslaw Czuj' via ChromeDriver Users <chromedri...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi,

Is there a way for an automation to learn which version (or download URI) of chromedriver is the current stable? The JSON only lists all of the available versions, but it doesn't tell which one is the current one.

Previous API was able to give compatible chromedriver version and it's download URI if I had chrome version.

https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing#json-api-endpoints You probably want to use one of the "latest-patch-versions-per-build" endpoints. But you might not need to if you download both the Chrome (for Testing) + ChromeDriver binary for exactly the same version.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/c838f79e-87d9-46ed-88b3-c3199f1df52fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Mathias Bynens]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 12:12 PM Bala Kumar <kbalak...@gmail.com> wrote:

What are the differences between Actual Chrome release and chrome-for-testing. Is something not included or optimized for automation performance. Is this mentioned in any blog or something.
How can I ensure that automation using chrome-for-testing is enough to replicate the real cases by users using actual chrome?

This is explained here: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-for-testing/

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/17b701f4-f4a9-41f9-886c-cb64139d2985n%40googlegroups.com.

[Gustavo Belini]

Hi Everyone, i hope you are doing well, i was wondering if there is any date realated to the release of this new version 115?

tks for your suport.

[jayant fegade]

why dont i see  Version 115.0.5790.99 in response of below url
https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/known-good-versions-with-downloads.json

On Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 19:41:29 UTC+5:30 Vipin Muralee wrote:

Hello Mathias,

I downloaded the chromedriver for mac-arm64. It is still throwing chrome binary error

can you please help

[David Engelmann]

is there a replacement for the old ` https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE` endpoint?

[Korey Gambill]

Are there plans to add .deb files for at least the google chrome download?

I made an install script that could get the latest versions, and then install google chrome and chrome-driver from the links - for example:
https://edgedl.me.gvt1.com/edgedl/chrome/chrome-for-testing/115.0.5790.98/linux64/chrome-linux64.zip
https://edgedl.me.gvt1.com/edgedl/chrome/chrome-for-testing/115.0.5790.98/linux64/chromedriver-linux64.zip

However, I ended up missing a lot of packages and I gave up before getting through the list because if package requirements change it will break the script anyways.

For now I think I will continue getting the chrome download through  apt-get install -y google-chrome-stable, and parsing the version to download the corresponding chrome-driver.

Also worth noting, but the chrome-linux64.zip does not include the google-chrome executable. So perhaps it wouldn't have worked anyways?

[Narendra Reddy]

Hi Team,

Thank you for the the update!

I have following steps to download Chrome driver in my yml file.

wget -O /tmp/chromedriver.zip http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/`
curl -sS chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE`/chromedriver_linux64.zip


Do I have any alternatives for above? As I wanted to automate my process as well.

Regards,
Narendra

[Mathias Bynens]

David, take a look at https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/last-known-good-versions.json. Also see https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing#json-api-endpoints for the other endpoints.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/a7794518-748a-4e67-aea7-329de412e382n%40googlegroups.com.

[Mathias Bynens]

On Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 6:18 PM Korey Gambill <ko...@getluna.com> wrote:

Are there plans to add .deb files for at least the google chrome download?

There are no such plans.

 

Also worth noting, but the chrome-linux64.zip does not include the google-chrome executable. So perhaps it wouldn't have worked anyways?

The executable is called `chrome`.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/609eae16-d65d-4e07-891f-11c42d7e27f6n%40googlegroups.com.

[Mathias Bynens]

Hi Narendra, https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-for-testing/#how-can-i-get-chrome-for-testing-binaries should answer this.  

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chromedriver-users/0d6a5134-bb87-4d5b-84d7-9592f484f7f2n%40googlegroups.com.

[Tim Mawson]

There's problem with the current "stable" release which is documented as  Chrome 115.0.5790.98 (Linux and Mac), 115.0.5790.98/99( Windows) @ https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/. However only 115.0.5790.98 is reported in the JSON endpoints, there is no 115.0.5790.99, which means I'm unable to automate fetching an appropriate ChromeDriver for the current Window Chrome installation.

[Mathias Bynens]

*.98/99 are A/B testing builds based off of the same Chrome revision. They are both guaranteed to be compatible with ChromeDriver *.98. For now, we recommend relying on the CfT JSON endpoints, and using the latest versions mentioned there for both Chrome (for Testing) + ChromeDriver binaries if possible.

If you insist on using a regular Chrome binary, and wish to find a corresponding ChromeDriver binary, check out the "latest-patch-versions-per-build" JSON API endpoints. This enables you to perform automated version selection similar to how it worked previously.

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[Dan Walker]

I just ran across this issue this morning.  Running Robot Framework in pycharm on mac arm64,  my browser got updated to 115, so getting errors about incompatible chrome driver.  I went to https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/#stable. and downloaded the chrome driver for 115.0.5790.98,  and copied the chromedriver file into my normal location in my python folder where robot looks for the chrome driver.   I now get this error when I try to run tests: 

WebDriverException: Message: unknown error: cannot find Chrome binary
Stacktrace:  

Since my browser auto-updated to 115, I need to use that version of the binary, but even though it's in the same exact location as it has been for a year.  python/robot is not finding it.  previously, I just had to copy that binary over anytime chrome got updated and it was fine.  How do I fix this?  

Dan

[Bill Karnavas]

This is the same problem I am having and posted about.

Bill