Web browser (in)compatibility with Selenium WebDriver

Question

Very often, when my local or remote instance of Firefox is automatically updated, it stops working with the most recent version of Selenium WebDriver. They simply become incompatible until next version of WebDriver is released.

What is the best way to handle such cases?

Shoud I turn off Firefox automated updates for the price of testing on outdated version of Firefox? Or there is some alternative?

• Fabrice31: You can have a look for Firefox ESR (Long Time support) here : mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq You still have a Firefox with "recent" upgrade, but with an old version number.
• dzieciou: @Fabrice31, thank you. Did you have similar problems with compatibility? Did using ESR solved this problem for you?
• Fabrice31: I am using from months with no compatibility problem. The only risk is that the ESR releases come several days after the classic one.

Answer 1

I believe that you should uncheck "Install Maintenance Service" box during Firefox installation, in that case you should be protected from automatic updates.

Also avoid opening "About Firefox" window as Firefox is known to update itself when you open it.

In regards to what version of Firefox is supported, as per Using Selenium with JMeter's WebDriver Sampler guide

1. Locate your selenium*.jar file
2. Mention version number before the extension, i.e. if it is selenium-server-standalone-2.41.0.jar then version is 2.41.0
3. Open Selenium Java Changelog
4. Look for "2.41.0" version

Voila

v2.41.0

=======

WebDriver:

• Update to support native events for Firefox 28 (removed native event support for Firefox 26). Native events are now supported for the following Firefox versions:

  17 (immediately previous ESR release)

  24 (current ESR release)

  27 (immediately previous release

  28 (current release)

5. Download one of the mentioned versions from Mozilla FTP Site and get pie.

Hope this helps.