selenium unreachable browser exception, java socket exception
java, selenium, webdriver
Solution
I found myself struggling with this issue for months, i really tried almost everything but still got random "UnreachableBrowserException" errors.
This is the only working solution for me.
System.setProperty("java.net.preferIPv4Stack" , "true");
Problem
Recently, especially with multiple tasks and processes running on the same pc, selenium webdriver 2 is giving many unreachable browser exceptions which are always with a java socket exception: ``` Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.remote.UnreachableBrowserException: Could not start a new session. Possible causes are invalid address of the remote server or browser start-up failure. Build info: version: '2.25.0', revision: '17482', time: '2012-07-18 21:09:54' System info: os.name: 'Windows Vista', os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '6.0', java.version: '1.7.0_05' Driver info: driver.version: FirefoxDriver at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:493) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.startSession(RemoteWebDriver.java:182) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.<init>(RemoteWebDriver.java:110) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:185) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:178) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:174) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:92) Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Permission denied: connect at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.connect0(Native Method) at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Unknown Source) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(Unknown Source) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(Unknown Source) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(Unknown Source) at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(Unknown Source) at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(Unknown Source) at java.net.Socket.connect(Unknown Source) at org.apache.http.conn.scheme.PlainSocketFactory.connectSocket(PlainSocketFactory.java:123) at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnectionOperator.openConnection(DefaultClientConnectionOperator.java:148) at org.apache.http.impl.conn.AbstractPoolEntry.open(AbstractPoolEntry.java:150) at org.apache.http.impl.conn.AbstractPooledConnAdapter.open(AbstractPooledConnAdapter.java:121) at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.tryConnect(DefaultRequestDirector.java:575) at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:425) at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:820) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.HttpCommandExecutor.fallBackExecute(HttpCommandExecutor.java:319) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.HttpCommandExecutor.execute(HttpCommandExecutor.java:297) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.internal.NewProfileExtensionConnection.execute(NewProfileExtensionConnection.java:136) at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver$LazyCommandExecutor.execute(FirefoxDriver.java:357) at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:472) ... 7 more ``` Why does this happen so often? Is selenim 2.25 incompatible with firefox 14?