We Keep Coding

Automate WhatsApp with Python & store WhatsApp login

I am trying to automate WhatsApp. I use selenium but the issue is that I have to scan QRCode every time I launch a chrome instance. I tried by saving the cookies of logged browser and then load the cookies but it didn't work and still show the QRcode to sign in.
I wanted to store WhatsApp login so that I don't have to log in every time I run the script.
Is this something possible with Selenium or if there is another better way?

Add chrome profile , that will allows reusing session data:
chrom_options.add_argument("user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data")
To get user data drectory:
open : chrome://version in address bar
copy till user data don't need profile part

To store WhatsApp login u have to open chrome in debug mode. following procedure i used in windows and it works.
first add chrome.exe in environment variable. then open chrome in debug mode from cmd. I use following vbscript to open chrome in debug mode. you can just save the code snip as chrome_launch.vbs and use this script to lauch chrome, only first time u would be asked for scan qr code.
Set objStdOut = WScript.StdOut
set osh = createObject("Wscript.shell")
user_profile = """C:\Users\" & osh.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%USERNAME%") & "\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\selenium_chrome_profile"""
osh.run "cmd /c " & "chrome.exe https://web.whatsapp.com/ --remote-debugging-port=9222 --user-data-dir=" & user_profile, 0, True
set osh = Nothing
after login whatsapp web, used following python snip to attach with existing session
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_experimental_option("debuggerAddress", "127.0.0.1:9222")
driver = webdriver.Chrome('chromedriver.exe', options=chrome_options)

Chrome WebDriver launch directly to URL instead of new tab page - Python, Selenium

I am trying to launch Chrome WebDriver using Selenium directly to a URL instead of launching to my default homepage (Chrome's new tab page) first and then calling driver.get(url). Is this possible?
I wasn't able to find a command-line argument to pass that would make the driver launch directly to a specified URL. Does this command line argument exist?
I then tried to alter my homepage in the initialization of the driver via few different methods found online of adding a dict containing key 'homepage' and value 'desired_url' to the driver's "prefs", but none of these methods worked for me.
If there is no way to do this from the driver itself, how can I change my Chrome homepage from a Python program prior to launching the driver?
Thank you!

--homepage= "url"
Command line argument
from selenium import webdriver
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('homepage=url')
options.add_argument('no-startup-window')
webDriver.Chrome(options=options)

Python Selenium Chrome "user data directory is already in use"

I'm trying to make a script in python with selenium that will open a website and click a button.
Problem is that I have to close chrome before I can run the script otherwise I get this error:
Message: invalid argument: user data directory is already in use, please specify a unique value for --user-data-dir argument, or don't use --user-data-dir
Is there a way around this so I don't have to close chrome before running the script everytime?
My code:
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
import time
PATH = "C:\Program Files (x86)\chromedriver.exe"
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("user-data-dir=C:/Users/username/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=r'C:\Program Files (x86)\chromedriver.exe', chrome_options=options)
driver.get("https://disboard.org/sv/dashboard/servers")
link = driver.find_element_by_link_text("bump")
link.click()

This error message...
invalid argument: user data directory is already in use, please specify a unique value for --user-data-dir argument, or don't use --user-data-dir
...implies that the user data directory Default is already in use so ChromeDriver was unable to access the directory and initiate/spawn a new Browsing Context i.e. Chrome Browser session.
Solution
In such cases, you can add/create a new Chrome Profile following the steps below and use it for the AUT (Application Under Test):
Open Google Chrome, and select the user icon in the top right and click on Add.
Enter a name for the new person, select an icon to help represent this new account and make it easier to find later. Then, select Add.
You will find the Chrome Profile shortcut created on the Desktop.
Additionally, you will find a new sub-directory Profile 1 being created beside Default
Now, you can use the Profile 1 sub-directory as follows:
options = Options()
options.add_argument("start-maximized")
options.add_argument("--profile-directory=Profile 1")
options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=C:/Users/user/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=r'C:\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe', options=options)
driver.get("https://www.google.com/")
References
You can find a couple of relevant detailed discussions in:
How to use Chrome Profile in Selenium Webdriver Python 3
selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidArgumentException: Message: invalid argument: user data directory is already in use error with real Chrome Browser
Selenium: Point towards default Chrome session

If it is crucial for your use case that you can use both your Chrome profile and your automation with your profile at the same time, here's a possible solution:
Install a second (older or newer) version of Chrome as described in this thread
Enable synchronization on the desired profile in your current Chrome.
Log in with the desired profile from the second version of Chrome and enable synchronization there as well.
Use the chrome driver compatible with the second version of Chrome in your code.
There may be some problems with synchronization not loading everything that you need, but if it's something simple like saved passwords then this should work.

The reason for your issue is because you have added the following argument:
options.add_argument("user-data-dir=C:/Users/username/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data")
The argument is instructing selenium to use your local chrome profile. Hence, as you have a chrome session open, the automation cannot execute until you close down the browser session.
Remove the argument to execute an independent automation test profile.
See below for the remediated code provided from your question
from selenium import webdriver
PATH = "C:\Program Files (x86)\chromedriver.exe"
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=PATH, options=options)
driver.get("https://disboard.org/sv/dashboard/servers")
link = driver.find_element_by_link_text("bump")
link.click()

logging into a website and downloading a file

I would like to log into a website and download a file. I'm using selenium and the chromedriver. Would like to know if there is a better way. It currently opens up a chrome browser window and sends the info. I don't want to see the browser window opened up and the data being sent. Just want to send it and return the data into a variable.
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
def site_login(URL,ID_username,ID_password,ID_submit,name,pas):
driver.get(URL)
driver.find_element_by_id(ID_username).send_keys(name)
driver.find_element_by_id(ID_password).send_keys(pas)
driver.find_element_by_id(ID_submit).click()
URL = "www.mywebsite.com/login"
ID_username = "name"
ID_password = "password"
ID_submit = "submit"
name = "myemail#mail.com"
pas = "mypassword"
resp=site_login(URL,ID_username,ID_password,ID_submit,name,pas)

You can run chrome in headless mode. In which case, the chrome UI won't show up and still performing the task you were doing. Some article I found on this https://intoli.com/blog/running-selenium-with-headless-chrome/. Hope this helps.

First option: If you are able to change the driver, you can use phantom-js as driver. That was a headless browser and you can use it with selenium.
Second option: If the site are not dynamic (easily called it SPA) or you are able to trace packet (which can be done in chrome dev tools), you can directly use request with the help of beautifulsoup if you need to get some data on the page.

Just add this two lines
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
This should make chrome run in the background.

Selenium web driver Firefox opening blank page

I'd like to ask something about Selenium library in Python.
I'm trying to open a webpage, directly log onto it, and access another webpage behind it (I wanted to navigate on the website after the login) with a Python script. I've found the following code on the Internet but I have a problem with the line:
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
It just opens a blank page in Firefox and it looks like the script get stuck with it and does nothing afterwards. I tried in the Python interpreter and it's the same, it opens a blank page in Firefox and I lose the hand (I can't enter other commands).
python interpreter blocked:
I'm using Selenium-3.3.1 and I work under CentOS 6.5.
Is it normal? Am I missing something obvious?
Here is my code:
#!usr/bash/python
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support import ui
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
def loadedPage(browser):
return browser.find_element_by_tag_name("body") != None
browser = webdriver.Firefox() #supposedly just a firefox webdrive instance creation
browser.get("http://machine/machineDir/index.php")
wait = ui.WebDriverWait(browser, 10)
wait.until(loadedPage)
username=browser.find_element_by_id("username")
username.send_keys("userTest")
passwd=browser.find_element_by_id("password")
passwd.send_keys("userTestpass")
passwd.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)

As you are using selenium 3, firefox browser can't be instantiate directly, you need to configure gecko driver for the same.
System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","path of geckodriver.exe");

I fixed it using the right version of Selenium for my old Firefox.
Firefox version: 17.0.10
Selenium version installed: 2.40