ChromeDriver ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR despite --ignore-certificate-errors

Question

I'm trying to run integration tests on a local host (with no HTTPS) using selenium with ChromeDriver.

Chrome requires an https certificate, but from this question i understand that i can circumvent this using the arg --ignore-certificate-errors

I have also added to my capabilities acceptInsecureCerts, as this seems like the appropriate course of action (docs)

The response from the chromedriver is still not what I was expecting:

This site can’t provide a secure connection app sent an invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

My code is below:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

# make options (principally to ignore certificate)
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--ignore-certificate-errors')

# add acceptInsecureCerts
capabilities = options.to_capabilities()
capabilities['acceptInsecureCerts'] = True

print(capabilities) # see below

driver = webdriver.Remote(
    command_executor=SELENIUM_HUB,
    desired_capabilities=capabilities
)
print(driver.__dict__) # see further below

app_login_url = 'http://app:8000/accounts/login/'

driver.get(app_login_url)

My capabilities:

{'acceptInsecureCerts': True,
'browserName': 'chrome',
'goog:chromeOptions': {'args': ['--ignore-certificate-errors'],
                        'extensions': []},
'platform': 'ANY',
'version': ''}

Here is my driver info, it looks like only the acceptInsecureCerts arg has been taken into account:

{'_file_detector': <selenium.webdriver.remote.file_detector.LocalFileDetector object at 0x7fb42bde10f0>,
'_is_remote': True,
'_mobile': <selenium.webdriver.remote.mobile.Mobile object at 0x7fb42bb5e400>,
'_switch_to': <selenium.webdriver.remote.switch_to.SwitchTo object at 0x7fb42bdd4898>,
'capabilities': {'acceptInsecureCerts': True,
                'acceptSslCerts': True,
                'applicationCacheEnabled': False,
                'browserConnectionEnabled': False,
                'browserName': 'chrome',
                'chrome': {'chromedriverVersion': '74.0.3729.6 '
                                                    '(255758eccf3d244491b8a1317aa76e1ce10d57e9-refs/branch-heads/3729@{#29})',
                            'userDataDir': '/tmp/.com.google.Chrome.vc1ZvB'},
                'cssSelectorsEnabled': True,
                'databaseEnabled': False,
                'goog:chromeOptions': {'debuggerAddress': 'localhost:40815'},
                'handlesAlerts': True,
                'hasTouchScreen': False,
                'javascriptEnabled': True,
                'locationContextEnabled': True,
                'mobileEmulationEnabled': False,
                'nativeEvents': True,
                'networkConnectionEnabled': False,
                'pageLoadStrategy': 'normal',
                'platform': 'Linux',
                'proxy': {},
                'rotatable': False,
                'setWindowRect': True,
                'strictFileInteractability': False,
                'takesHeapSnapshot': True,
                'takesScreenshot': True,
                'timeouts': {'implicit': 0,
                            'pageLoad': 300000,
                            'script': 30000},
                'unexpectedAlertBehaviour': 'ignore',
                'version': '74.0.3729.169',
                'webStorageEnabled': True,
                'webdriver.remote.sessionid': '1cf77f237e966bac6ca15d4d9c107423'},
'command_executor': <selenium.webdriver.remote.remote_connection.RemoteConnection object at 0x7fb42be0cf98>,
'error_handler': <selenium.webdriver.remote.errorhandler.ErrorHandler object at 0x7fb427d08a20>,
'session_id': '1cf77f237e966bac6ca15d4d9c107423',
'w3c': False}

Why am i still seeing the ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR ?

Answer 1

This error message...

This site can’t provide a secure connection app sent an invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

...implies that the ChromeDriver was unable to initiate/spawn a new WebBrowser i.e. Chrome Browser session on your localhost.

As you are seeing this issue on your local host (with no HTTPS) as per this comment a blind fold solution would be to add the argument --allow-insecure-localhost through chromeOptions() as follows:

'goog:chromeOptions': {'args': ['--allow-insecure-localhost'],
            'extensions': []}

---

However your main issue seems to be with the capabilities where you have set platform being set s ANY as follows:

{'acceptInsecureCerts': True,
'browserName': 'chrome',
'goog:chromeOptions': {'args': ['--ignore-certificate-errors'],
            'extensions': []},
'platform': 'ANY',
'version': ''}

As per WebDriver - W3C Living Document the platformName section mentions, the following platform names are in common usage with well-understood semantics and, when matching capabilities, greatest interoperability can be achieved by honoring them as valid synonyms for well-known Operating Systems:

Key         System
---         ------
"linux"     Any server or desktop system based upon the Linux kernel.
"mac"       Any version of Apple’s macOS.
"windows"   Any version of Microsoft Windows, including desktop and mobile versions.

Note:This list is not exhaustive.

When returning capabilities from New Session, it is valid to return a more specific platformName, allowing users to correctly identify the Operating System the WebDriver implementation is running on.

So instead of passing "platform":"ANY" within the desiredCapabilities object, a more specific "platform":"linux" will be more desirable approach.

You can find a relevant and related discussion in Curl error thrown for http POST to /session with params: {“desiredCapabilities”:{“browserName”:“chrome”,“platform”:“ANY” with Selenium and PHPUnit

---

Some more information about the ChromeDriver, Chrome and Selenium Client vrsion would have helped us to analyze the issue in a better way. However as per ChromeDriver history the following issues related to handling of certificate errors were addressed in the last few releases of ChromeDriver:

• Allow handling certificate errors via DevTools: As the headless chrome cannot show a UI warning for SSL certificate errors a fix was released to expose the errors as DevTools events and control the action to take through a DevTools command.
• Provide ability to handle certificate errors in Chromedriver/Selenium for headless: Earlier certain security related options that was controlled via CLI switches in the UI version of Chromium (like --ignore-certificate-errors) were silently ignored and can only be set via devtools. So it was necessary to override and handle certificateError events on the browser-target DevTools client. A fix was released implementing the usage of the new DevTools method to override certificate error handling browser-wide which allowed ignoring certificate errors in headless mode too.
• Global certificate error handling via DevTools: Previously DevTools allowed handling certificate errors for individual targets / WebContents, but when a new target was created (e.g. clicking on a target=_blank link), it was not often not possible to send the Security.enable / Security.setOverrideCertificateErrors commands quickly enough before a navigation is attempted. A fix was published with a simpler "ignore all cert errors" mode instead deprecated the old override command in favor of a new setIgnoreCertificateErrors command which also exposes the Security domain on the browser target to facilitate applying this override globally for the whole browser.

---

Conclusion

• Ensure that the following arguments/capabilities are added:
  • --allow-insecure-localhost
  • acceptInsecureCerts
  • --ignore-certificate-errors
• As you are using 'chromedriverVersion': '74.0.3729.6' ensure that you are also using 'chrome': '74.0' (as per ChromeDriver v74.0.3729.6 Release Notes)
• Ensure that you are using the latest released Selenium v3.141.59 clients.