[🐛 Bug]: I am getting "WebDriverException: Unable to parse:" when using Selenium Select.selectByVisualText

[mhmelshaaerdxpr]

What happened?

I am having a test suite with a parallel setup to run test classes in parallel. The parallel setup is not an issue and it's 100% working fine. After upgrading from selenium 4.0.0-beta-3 to 4.1.2, I often get a WebDriverException: Unable to parse: exception. Every time the exception triggers, the stack trace points to the same line of code that uses Selenium Select.selectByVisualText.

I even tried to run the suite in the serial execution setup and it triggers the same exception with a different test class but referring to the same utility we have that uses the Selenium Select.selectByVisualText

How can we reproduce the issue?

Use the Selenium Select.selectByVisualText to select an option from a drop-down select. I would suggest having a test suite of 10 or so doing the same actions so that you have a higher probability to trigger this exception. Or, maybe one class with a for loop that calls the Select.selectByVisualText method would be easier.

I am not sure if this bug can be resolved without this Feature Proposal being implemented

• WebDriverException: let's add some info about the Grid node #9792

Relevant log output

WebDriverException: Unable to parse: 
Build info: version: '4.1.2', revision: '9a5a329c5a'
System info: host: '511b4cdd4521', ip: '172.18.0.11', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '5.11.0-1028-azure', java.version: '1.8.0_282'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver
Command: [eaaeb6cce0ca5a14e5bfdb86fc271b11, findElement {using=xpath, value=//select[@id='edit-moderation-state-0-state']}]
Capabilities {acceptInsecureCerts: false, browserName: chrome, browserVersion: 99.0.4844.74, chrome: {chromedriverVersion: 99.0.4844.51 (d537ec02474b5..., userDataDir: /tmp/.com.google.Chrome.3ghYqB}, goog:chromeOptions: {debuggerAddress: localhost:40463}, javascriptEnabled: true, networkConnectionEnabled: false, pageLoadStrategy: normal, platform: LINUX, platformName: LINUX, proxy: Proxy(), se:cdp: ws://172.18.0.6:4444/sessio..., se:cdpVersion: 99.0.4844.74, se:vnc: ws://172.18.0.6:4444/sessio..., se:vncEnabled: true, se:vncLocalAddress: ws://172.18.0.6:7900, setWindowRect: true, strictFileInteractability: false, timeouts: {implicit: 0, pageLoad: 300000, script: 30000}, unhandledPromptBehavior: dismiss and notify, webauthn:extension:credBlob: true, webauthn:extension:largeBlob: true, webauthn:virtualAuthenticators: true}
Session ID: eaaeb6cce0ca5a14e5bfdb86fc271b11
org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Unable to parse: 
Build info: version: '4.1.2', revision: '9a5a329c5a'
System info: host: '511b4cdd4521', ip: '172.18.0.11', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '5.11.0-1028-azure', java.version: '1.8.0_282'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver
Command: [eaaeb6cce0ca5a14e5bfdb86fc271b11, findElement {using=xpath, value=//select[@id='edit-moderation-state-0-state']}]
Capabilities {acceptInsecureCerts: false, browserName: chrome, browserVersion: 99.0.4844.74, chrome: {chromedriverVersion: 99.0.4844.51 (d537ec02474b5..., userDataDir: /tmp/.com.google.Chrome.3ghYqB}, goog:chromeOptions: {debuggerAddress: localhost:40463}, javascriptEnabled: true, networkConnectionEnabled: false, pageLoadStrategy: normal, platform: LINUX, platformName: LINUX, proxy: Proxy(), se:cdp: ws://172.18.0.6:4444/sessio..., se:cdpVersion: 99.0.4844.74, se:vnc: ws://172.18.0.6:4444/sessio..., se:vncEnabled: true, se:vncLocalAddress: ws://172.18.0.6:7900, setWindowRect: true, strictFileInteractability: false, timeouts: {implicit: 0, pageLoad: 300000, script: 30000}, unhandledPromptBehavior: dismiss and notify, webauthn:extension:credBlob: true, webauthn:extension:largeBlob: true, webauthn:virtualAuthenticators: true}
Session ID: eaaeb6cce0ca5a14e5bfdb86fc271b11
	at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
	at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.codec.w3c.W3CHttpResponseCodec.createException(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:200)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.codec.w3c.W3CHttpResponseCodec.decode(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:133)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.codec.w3c.W3CHttpResponseCodec.decode(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:53)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.HttpCommandExecutor.execute(HttpCommandExecutor.java:184)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.TracedCommandExecutor.execute(TracedCommandExecutor.java:51)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:558)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ElementLocation$ElementFinder$2.findElement(ElementLocation.java:162)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ElementLocation.findElement(ElementLocation.java:60)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElement(RemoteWebDriver.java:382)
	at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElement(RemoteWebDriver.java:374)
	at org.openqa.selenium.support.pagefactory.DefaultElementLocator.findElement(DefaultElementLocator.java:70)
	at org.openqa.selenium.support.pagefactory.internal.LocatingElementHandler.invoke(LocatingElementHandler.java:39)
	at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy14.getDomAttribute(Unknown Source)
	at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select.<init>(Select.java:54)
	at dxpr.testautomation.utility.CommonMethods.selectFromDropDownMenu(CommonMethods.java:163)
	at dxpr.testautomation.pages.DragDropPageCreate.addPage(DragDropPageCreate.java:65)
	at dxpr.testautomation.chrome.ChromeTestBase.createDragDropPage(ChromeTestBase.java:86)
	at dxpr.testautomation.chrome.CarouselOutsideNavigationPositionTopLeftOptionTest.beforeClass(CarouselOutsideNavigationPositionTopLeftOptionTest.java:68)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
	at org.testng.internal.MethodInvocationHelper.invokeMethod(MethodInvocationHelper.java:133)
	at org.testng.internal.MethodInvocationHelper.invokeMethodConsideringTimeout(MethodInvocationHelper.java:62)
	at org.testng.internal.ConfigInvoker.invokeConfigurationMethod(ConfigInvoker.java:385)
	at org.testng.internal.ConfigInvoker.invokeConfigurations(ConfigInvoker.java:321)
	at org.testng.internal.TestMethodWorker.invokeBeforeClassMethods(TestMethodWorker.java:176)
	at org.testng.internal.TestMethodWorker.run(TestMethodWorker.java:122)
	at java.util.ArrayList.forEach(ArrayList.java:1259)
	at org.testng.TestRunner.privateRun(TestRunner.java:794)
	at org.testng.TestRunner.run(TestRunner.java:596)
	at org.testng.SuiteRunner.runTest(SuiteRunner.java:377)
	at org.testng.SuiteRunner.access$000(SuiteRunner.java:28)
	at org.testng.SuiteRunner$SuiteWorker.run(SuiteRunner.java:418)
	at org.testng.internal.thread.ThreadUtil.lambda$execute$0(ThreadUtil.java:64)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

Operating System

Linux runner on GitHub Action.

Selenium version

4.1.2

What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

Chrome headless mode

What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

selenium/node-chrome:4.1.2-20220317

Are you using Selenium Grid?

selenium/hub:4.1.2-20220317

[github-actions]

@mhmelshaaerdxpr, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

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[github-actions]

Hi, @mhmelshaaerdxpr.
Please follow the issue template, we need more information to reproduce the issue.

Either a complete code snippet and URL/HTML (if more than one file is needed, provide a GitHub repo and instructions to run the code), the specific versions used, or a more detailed description to help us understand the issue.

Note: If you cannot share your code and URL/HTML, any complete code snippet and URL/HTML that reproduces the issue is good enough.

Reply to this issue when all information is provided, thank you.

[titusfortner]

If you look at the command and stack trace, you'll see it isn't related to the "select by text" part; it is erroring in when trying to find the select element in the first place. I'd have to see the full debug information to know what was being sent back to know what isn't getting parsed. Whatever isn't getting parsed is coming from Chromedriver. Since the Selenium code looks looks correct, then chromedriver is not returning a correct response for some reason.

Few options here.

1. Maybe the reason has to do with the locator; it's recommended to avoid XPath where possible
2. Maybe the reason has to do with using headless chrome, try using xvfb instead
3. Since this intermittent, it most likely it is a timing issue of some kind, so figure out how to wait for the state you need before taking the action
4. Create a reproducible use case and raise an issue with Google.

[github-actions]

Hi, @mhmelshaaerdxpr.
This issue has been determined to require fixes in ChromeDriver.

You can see if the feature is passing in the Web Platform Tests.

If it is something new, please create an issue with the ChromeDriver team.
Feel free to comment the issues that you raise back in this issue. Thank you.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.