org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: chrome not reachable - when attempting to start a new session

When I run my tests on Chrome I often get a WebdriverException that Chrome is not reachable. It doesn't happen every time. Maybe once every 15 times. I am having to run everything on Windows machines and I have the latest Chrome, Chromedriver, Selenium-Webdriver versions.

I've tried setting the environmental variable "DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=/dev/null". Doesn't help at all.

Anyone come across this and found a solution?

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: chrome not reachable
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.35.528161 (5b82f2d2aae0ca24b877009200ced9065a772e73),platform=Windows NT 6.1.7601 SP1 x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 62.52 seconds
Build info: version: '2.52.0', revision: '4c2593cfc3689a7fcd7be52549167e5ccc93ad28', time: '2016-02-11 11:22:43'
System info: host: 'CORPMNA7158A', ip: '10.26.195.163', os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.8.0_144'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver

The error does gives us some hint as follows :

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: chrome not reachable

Which essentially implies that chromedriver binary is unable to spawn a new Chrome Browser process.

Your main issue is the version compatibility among the binaries you are using as follows :

• You are using chromedriver=2.35.528161 (released 2018-01-10)
• Release Notes of chromedriver=2.35 clearly mentions the following :

Supports Chrome v62-64

• You mentioned of using latest Chrome. I suppose it is chrome=65.x
• You are using Selenium Version 2.52.0 (released 2016-02-11 11:22:43) [as per the error stack trace within your question]

So the time gap between the release of Selenium Version 2.52.0 and chromedriver=2.35.528161 is almost 2 Years and are not compatible. Hence ChromeDriver is unable to spawn the new Chrome Browser process at times.

Solution

• Keep the ChromeDriver at v2.35 level.
• Downgrade Chrome to stable Chrome v64.x levels. (as per ChromeDriver v2.35 release notes)
• Upgrade Selenium to current levels Version 3.8.1.
• Execute your Test.