ConnectionAbortedError: [WinError 10053] An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine

Question

For some reason I get the following error only when I open up a nested webdriver instance. No idea what is happening here.

I am using Windows 10, geckodriver 0.21.0, and Python 3.7.

ConnectionAbortedError: [WinError 10053]

An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine

Part of Script That Is Working Fine

tab_backers = ff.find_element_by_xpath('//a[@gogo-test="backers_tab"]')

try:
    funding_backers_count = int(''.join(filter(str.isdigit, str(tab_backers.text))))
except ValueError:
    funding_backers_count = 0

if funding_backers_count > 0:
    tab_backers.click()

    see_more_backers = WebDriverWait(ff, 10).until(
        EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, '//ui-view//a[text()="See More Backers"]'))
    )
    clicks = 0
    while clicks < 0:
        clicks += 1
        ff.WebDriverWait(ff, 5).until(
            see_more_backers.click()
        )

    for container in ff.find_elements_by_xpath('//ui-view//div[@class="campaignBackers-pledge ng-scope"]'):
        backers_profile = container.find_elements_by_xpath('./*/div[@class="campaignBackers-pledge-backer-details"]/a')
        if len(backers_profile) > 0:
            backers_profile = backers_profile[0].get_attribute('href') 
        else:
            backers_profile = 'Unknown'
        backers_name = safe_encode(container.find_element_by_xpath('(./*/div[@class="campaignBackers-pledge-backer-details"]/*)[1]').text)
        backers_timestamp = container.find_element_by_xpath('./*/div[@class="campaignBackers-pledge-backer-details"]/div[contains(@class, "campaignBackers-pledge-backer-details-note")]').text
        backers_contribution = container.find_element_by_xpath('./*//*[contains(@class, "campaignBackers-pledge-amount-bold")]').text
        if backers_contribution != 'Private':
            backers_contribution = int(''.join(filter(str.isdigit, str(backers_contribution))))
        if backers_profile != 'Unknown':

Part of Script Causing System to Abort Connection

            _ff = create_webdriver_instance()
            _ff.get(backers_profile)
            _ff.quit()

Traceback

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\Desktop\test.py", line 271, in <module>
    backers_profile = container.find_elements_by_xpath('./*/div[@class="campaignBackers-pledge-backer-details"]/a')
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webelement.py", line 381, in find_elements_by_xpath
    return self.find_elements(by=By.XPATH, value=xpath)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webelement.py", line 680, in find_elements
    {"using": by, "value": value})['value']
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webelement.py", line 628, in _execute
    return self._parent.execute(command, params)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 318, in execute
    response = self.command_executor.execute(driver_command, params)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\remote_connection.py", line 472, in execute
    return self._request(command_info[0], url, body=data)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\remote_connection.py", line 495, in _request
    self._conn.request(method, parsed_url.path, body, headers)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\http\client.py", line 1229, in request
    self._send_request(method, url, body, headers, encode_chunked)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\http\client.py", line 1275, in _send_request
    self.endheaders(body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\http\client.py", line 1224, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\http\client.py", line 1055, in _send_output
    self.send(chunk)
  File "C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\http\client.py", line 977, in send
    self.sock.sendall(data)
ConnectionAbortedError: [WinError 10053] An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine

geckodriver.log

Here it is in a codepen, since it is wayyy too long!

create_webdriver_instance Function

def create_webdriver_instance():
    options = Options()
    options.add_argument('-headless')
    try:
        ua_string = random.choice(ua_strings)
        profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
        profile.set_preference('general.useragent.override', ua_string)
        return webdriver.Firefox(profile) # profile, firefox_options=options
    except IndexError as error:
        print('\nSection: Function to Create Instances of WebDriver\nCulprit: random.choice(ua_strings)\nIndexError: {}\n'.format(error))
        return webdriver.Firefox() # firefox_options=options

Does anybody have any idea whatsoever what might be causing the connection to abort?

Answer 1

As documentation says:

Software caused connection abort. An established connection was aborted by the software in your host computer, possibly due to a data transmission time-out or protocol error.

Possible reasons:

1. Timeout or other network-level error.
2. Network connection died
3. Firewall closed the connection because it was open too long
4. Connection was closed before process has been finished
5. AntiVirus blocks the connection

and etc.

Also try to downgrade geckodriver 0.21.0 to geckodriver 0.20.1. You can download it here. It seems to be a problem with geckodriver 0.21.0 https://stackoverflow.com/a/51236719/8625512

PS:

options.add_argument('-headless')

should be:

options.add_argument('--headless')