using the same chrome profile (session) for different ChromeDriver instances

Question

I am trying to open multiple browsers in parallel, but I can not navigate to the website in more than one window..

Here is how I do it:

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Answer 1

Okay, so I am using my approach as stated above.

My requirements were:

• I must keep the cookies of the main chrome profile
• I must keep extensions of the main profile
• I do not need the history, opened tabs, session etc. of the main profile
• after a new start of an existing custom profile - i start it clear without opened tabs

Here is the logic in few words.

• First I specify a directory for the existing Google Chrome profile.
• If we need to create cookies (i.e. login into some website) then we do it on the main profile of google chrome.
• After it is done, close the chrome. Some websites keep cookies for a long time, some - not. So it is in our interest to relogin on the main profile when necessary. Do not keep the Original chrome opened! Otherwise ChromeDriver will throw some warnings.
• Next, my script will copy the necessary folders and files into new folder. This folder is our new profile with all cookies. Everything is about 30 megabytes in size on my PC.
• If the folder for the new profile already exists - then the program will only copy cookies files. That's shouldn't be more than 1-2 megs of data.

And here is the code. You might want to tweak one thing or another.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Firefox;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Internal;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Remote;
using System.IO;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Management;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Threading;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Collections.Concurrent;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Net;

namespace NAMESPACE
{
    public class CoreDriver
    {
        public IWebDriver driver;
        public string my_name { get; set; }
        public int my_port { get; set; }

        public string default_profile_dir = @"C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\";
        public string chromedriver_path = @"C:\Users\USERNAME\Downloads\chromedriver_win32\";
        public string site_profile_path;
        public string site_profile_path_s;
        public string default_path;

        public void Initialize()
        {
            ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
            options.AddArgument("--log-level=3");
            options.AddArgument("--test-type");
            options.AddArgument("--silent");
            options.AddArgument("user-data-dir=" + site_profile_path_s);
            options.AddArgument("--disable-plugins"); // disable flash

            var driverService = ChromeDriverService.CreateDefaultService(chromedriver_path);
            driverService.HideCommandPromptWindow = true;
            driverService.Port = my_port;

            driver = new ChromeDriver(driverService, options);
            driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 14));
            driver.Manage().Timeouts().SetPageLoadTimeout(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15));

            IJavaScriptExecutor jscript = driver as IJavaScriptExecutor;
            jscript.ExecuteScript("return window.stop");
        }

        public void ConfigureProfile()
        {
            site_profile_path_s = default_profile_dir + "profile " + my_name;
            site_profile_path = site_profile_path_s + @"\Default";

            default_path = default_profile_dir + @"User Data\Default";

            if (!Directory.Exists(site_profile_path))
            {
                CreateBlankProfile();
            }
            else
            {
                // copy existing chrome profile. Keep cache, extensions, etc.
                CopyProfileFiles();

                // but stay away from opened tabs
                RemoveOpenedTabsFiles();
            }

        }

        public void CleanUpOldProfiles()
        {
            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(default_profile_dir);
            DirectoryInfo[] directories = di.GetDirectories("profile*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);
            if (directories.Count() > 0)
            {
                foreach (var folder in directories)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        Directory.Delete(folder.FullName, true);
                    }
                    catch
                    {

                    }

                }

            }
        }

        public void CreateBlankProfile()
        {
            // new profile direftory
            CreateIfMissing();

            // copy existing chrome profile. Keep cache, extensions, etc.
            // but stay away from opened tabs
            CopyProfileFiles();
            CopyProfileFolders();
        }

        public void CopyProfileFiles()
        {
            // default profile location
            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(default_path);

            // copy files
            List<string> file_lib = new List<string>() { "Cookies", "Login", "Preferences", "Secur" };
            FileInfo[] files = di.GetFiles("*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);
            if (files.Count() > 0)
            {
                foreach (var file in files)
                {
                    if (PassFileOrFolder(file.Name, file_lib))
                    {
                        file.CopyTo(site_profile_path + @"\" + file.Name, true);
                    }

                }

            }
        }

        public void RemoveOpenedTabsFiles()
        {
            // default profile location
            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(site_profile_path);

            // copy files
            List<string> file_lib = new List<string>() { "Current", "Last" };
            FileInfo[] files = di.GetFiles("*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);
            if (files.Count() > 0)
            {
                foreach (var file in files)
                {
                    if (PassFileOrFolder(file.Name, file_lib))
                    {
                        File.Delete(file.FullName);
                    }

                }

            }
        }

        public void CopyProfileFolders()
        {
            // default profile location
            DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(default_path);

            // copy folders
            List<string> folder_lib = new List<string>() { "databases", "Extension", " Storage", "Web Applications", "File System", "IndexedDB" };
            DirectoryInfo[] directories = di.GetDirectories("*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);
            if (directories.Count() > 0)
            {
                foreach (var folder in directories)
                {
                    if (PassFileOrFolder(folder.Name, folder_lib))
                    {
                        DirectoryCopy(folder.FullName, site_profile_path + @"\" + folder.Name, true);
                    }

                }

            }
        }

        private void CreateIfMissing()
        {
            Directory.CreateDirectory(site_profile_path);
        }

        private static void DirectoryCopy(string sourceDirName, string destDirName, bool copySubDirs)
        {
            // Get the subdirectories for the specified directory.
            DirectoryInfo dir = new DirectoryInfo(sourceDirName);
            DirectoryInfo[] dirs = dir.GetDirectories();

            if (!dir.Exists)
            {
                throw new DirectoryNotFoundException(
                    "Source directory does not exist or could not be found: "
                    + sourceDirName);
            }

            // If the destination directory doesn't exist, create it. 
            if (!Directory.Exists(destDirName))
            {
                Directory.CreateDirectory(destDirName);
            }

            // Get the files in the directory and copy them to the new location.
            FileInfo[] files = dir.GetFiles();
            foreach (FileInfo file in files)
            {
                string temppath = Path.Combine(destDirName, file.Name);
                file.CopyTo(temppath, false);
            }

            // If copying subdirectories, copy them and their contents to new location. 
            if (copySubDirs)
            {
                foreach (DirectoryInfo subdir in dirs)
                {
                    string temppath = Path.Combine(destDirName, subdir.Name);
                    DirectoryCopy(subdir.FullName, temppath, copySubDirs);
                }
            }
        }

        public bool PassFileOrFolder(string input, List<string> library)
        {
            foreach (string name in library)
            {
                if (input.Contains(name))
                {
                    return true;
                }
            }
            return false;
        }
    }
}

Please note that I have also implemented a method to clean up all profiles CleanUpOldProfiles

Review the code, make changes to directories etc. After done - make a following call:

CoreDriver something = new CoreDriver(); // creating an object
// settings
something.my_port = 50150; // multiple chrome instances - will be run on different ports
// I am currently having 4 chrome profiles ;)
something.my_name = "mynewprofile"; // full profile name will be: 'profile + my_name'. Check the code of the object.
// void
something.ConfigureProfile(); // creating new profile or updating existing one, if folder eists
something.Initialize(); // starting the browser

sorry for a long answer. Hope it helps you guys somehow :)