Python Firefox webdriver can fail on slow systems

When I try to load Firefox webdriver in python using: webdriver.Firefox()

It occasionally fails after around 30 seconds with below traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/webdriver.py", line 77, in __init__
    self.binary, timeout),
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/extension_connection.py", line 49, in __init__
    self.binary.launch_browser(self.profile)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/firefox_binary.py", line 68, in launch_browser
    self._wait_until_connectable()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/firefox/firefox_binary.py", line 103, in _wait_until_connectable
    raise WebDriverException("Can't load the profile. Profile "
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: Can't load the profile. Profile Dir: %s If you specified a log_file in the FirefoxBinary constructor, check it for details.

I am almost sure it’s to do with hardcoded 30 seconds timeout in firefox_binary.py:101. When I changed that value to 60 it started working.

I tried to load webdriver like this: webdriver.Firefox(timeout=60)

but after looking at the code the timeout is not actually used so made no difference

How to replicate:

• this issue can only be seen on slow systems (like RaspberryPi) where firefox takes over 30 seconds to start
• the following python code can be used to replicate the problem:

from selenium import webdriver
browser = webdriver.Firefox()

[peletiah]

Issue does not seem to be caused by a slow machine. I’m running into the same problem with an i5-4570T.

[HackToday]

I am using selenium 2.53.1 and Firefox 45.0。2, can hit above issue occasionally