Error message chromedriver executable needs to be available in the path

Question

I've written my Selenium code on Python and also downloaded the chromedriver.exe for my windows OS from here: http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html?path=2.15/

I extracted the downloaded zip file, and then put the path to the exe (C:\Users\michael\Downloads\chromedriver_win32) into the Environment Variable "Path". However, I get an error when I run this code:

  from selenium import webdriver
  driver = webdriver.Chrome()

Error log:

WebDriverException: Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be available in the path. Please look at     http://docs.seleniumhq.org/download/#thirdPartyDrivers and read up at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver

But I think I've done everything correct. Can someone help me out here?

Comments

Hi,

Please download the Chrome driver from here as per your Operating System :
https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html?path=2.45/

Please unzip 'chromedriver_XXXX' and put 'chromedriver.exe' in 'C:\Python27\Scripts' folder.
If you follow this step, then you need not to provide the path of the driver, just invoke the driver using the following code :

driver= webdriver.Chrome()

Thanks,

Manish

Answer 1

Okay there are a couple of wrong doings here. 
1. You don't need to set your environment variables for chromedriver.exe. This is an executable.
2. The reason for your error is because you have to provide the path to chromedriver.exe in your code. Do it using System.setProperty().
3. And if your doing it using Elipse IDE, then remember that your path to chromedriver.exe will have to double slashes everywhere and not single slashes which is how usually the path is.

Below code is how you should do it.

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Users\\michael\\Downloads\\chromedriver_win32.exe");
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();