title: org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally
body: <p>I wanted to carry out the run for my regression tests on Chrome browser hosted on the Linux platform (Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.0 (Maipo)). Following sample test was created for the same:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import org.openqa.selenium.By;
  import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
  import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
  import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriverService;
  import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;
  import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;
  import java.io.File;
  import java.io.IOException;
  
  public class ChromeTest {
  
  private static ChromeDriverService service;
  
  
  public static void createAndStartService() throws IOException {
      service = new ChromeDriverService.Builder()
              .usingDriverExecutable(new File("/&lt;pathToChromeDrive&gt;/chromedriver"))
      .withLogFile(new File("/&lt;pathToChromeDriveLogs&gt;/chromedriver.log"))
              .usingAnyFreePort()
              .build();
      service.start();
  }
  
  
  public static void createAndStopService() {
      service.stop();
  }
  
  
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      WebDriver driver;
      try {
          createAndStartService();
          driver = new RemoteWebDriver(service.getUrl(),
                  DesiredCapabilities.chrome());
          driver.get("http://www.google.com");
          WebElement searchBox = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
          searchBox.sendKeys("webdriver");
          driver.quit();
          createAndStopService();
      } catch (IOException e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
      }
  }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I try running this selenium test using Chrome (version- 43.0.2357.81 (64-bit)) as browser on Linux it fails following exception.</p>
  
  <pre><code>Starting ChromeDriver 2.14.313457 (3d645c400edf2e2c500566c9aa096063e707c9cf) on port 3039Only local connections are allowed.Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.14.313457 (3d645c400edf2e2c500566c9aa096063e707c9cf),platform=Linux 3.8.13-35.3.1.el7uek.x86_64 x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)Command duration or timeout: 60.20 secondsBuild info: version: '2.39.0', revision: 'ff23eac', time: '2013-12-16 16:11:15'System info: host: 'localhost.localdomain', ip: '&lt;&gt;', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '3.8.13-35.3.1.el7uek.x86_64', java.version: '1.8.0_25'Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver
      at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
      at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
      at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
      at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:408)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.createThrowable(ErrorHandler.java:193)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.throwIfResponseFailed(ErrorHandler.java:145)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:554)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.startSession(RemoteWebDriver.java:216)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.&lt;init&gt;(RemoteWebDriver.java:111)
      at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.&lt;init&gt;(RemoteWebDriver.java:129)
      at ChromeTest.main(ChromeTest.java:36)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Before running the tests I did the following:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Chrome rpm was downloaded form the below link. "<a href="https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm" rel="noreferrer">https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm</a>".</p></li>
  <li><p>Following chromedriver used (2.14.313457): <a href="http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.14/chromedriver_linux64.zip" rel="noreferrer">http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.14/chromedriver_linux64.zip</a></p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>After installing chrome, the sample test was ran.</p>
  
  <p>chromedriver logs are as below :</p>
  
  <pre><code>[0.398][INFO]: COMMAND InitSession {
     "desiredCapabilities": {
        "browserName": "chrome",
        "platform": "ANY",
        "version": ""
     }
  }
  [0.399][INFO]: Populating Preferences file: {
     "alternate_error_pages": {
        "enabled": false
     },
     "autofill": {
        "enabled": false
     },
     "browser": {
        "check_default_browser": false
     },
     "distribution": {
        "import_bookmarks": false,
        "import_history": false,
        "import_search_engine": false,
        "make_chrome_default_for_user": false,
        "show_welcome_page": false,
        "skip_first_run_ui": true
     },
     "dns_prefetching": {
        "enabled": false
     },
     "profile": {
        "content_settings": {
           "pattern_pairs": {
              "https://*,*": {
                 "media-stream": {
                    "audio": "Default",
                    "video": "Default"
                 }
              }
           }
        },
        "default_content_settings": {
           "geolocation": 1,
           "mouselock": 1,
           "notifications": 1,
           "popups": 1,
           "ppapi-broker": 1
        },
        "password_manager_enabled": false
     },
     "safebrowsing": {
        "enabled": false
     },
     "search": {
        "suggest_enabled": false
     },
     "translate": {
        "enabled": false
     }
  }
  [0.400][INFO]: Populating Local State file: {
     "background_mode": {
        "enabled": false
     },
     "ssl": {
        "rev_checking": {
           "enabled": false
        }
     }
  }
  [0.401][INFO]: Launching chrome: /opt/google/chrome --disable-background-networking --disable-client-side-phishing-detection --disable-component-update --disable-default-apps --disable-hang-monitor --disable-prompt-on-repost --disable-sync --disable-web-resources --enable-logging --ignore-certificate-errors --load-extension=/tmp/.com.google.Chrome.69stsm/internal --log-level=0 --metrics-recording-only --no-first-run --password-store=basic --remote-debugging-port=12234 --safebrowsing-disable-auto-update --safebrowsing-disable-download-protection --test-type=webdriver --use-mock-keychain --user-data-dir=/tmp/.com.google.Chrome.5HCrWO data:,
  [0.402][WARNING]: PAC support disabled because there is no system implementation
  [60.410][INFO]: RESPONSE InitSession unknown error: Chrome failed to start: exited abnormally
  </code></pre>