Selenium + ChromeDriver + Headless Chrome - failed to wait for extension background page to load

Question

I am using Selenium 3.10.0 + ChromeDriver 2.37.543619 + Google Chrome 65.0.3325.162

I have a browser extension that I need when testing:

Browser extension

I am running this code:

  ChromeDriver webDriver = null;
  System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", new File("chromedriver").getAbsolutePath());
  System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.logfile", "chromedriver.log");
  System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.verboseLogging", "true");
  ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
  chromeOptions.addArguments("--enable-logging", "--v=1", "--disable-sand-box");
  chromeOptions.setHeadless(true);
  chromeOptions.addExtensions(new File("/home/ndipiazza/Downloads/chrome-request-counter.crx"));
  webDriver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);

I am getting the following error:

Starting ChromeDriver 2.37.543619 (a237acd3116cac3b3f0da42a000502ce3fafcb23) on port 6679
Only local connections are allowed.
Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: failed to wait for extension background page to load: chrome-extension://nehbkkpdaccfofjkopcgnlhhgfoabbnc/_generated_background_page.html
from unknown error: page could not be found: chrome-extension://nehbkkpdaccfofjkopcgnlhhgfoabbnc/_generated_background_page.html
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.37.543619 (a237acd3116cac3b3f0da42a000502ce3fafcb23),platform=Linux 4.13.0-37-generic x86_64) (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 10.27 seconds
Build info: version: '3.10.0', revision: '176b4a9', time: '2018-03-02T19:03:16.397Z'
System info: host: 'mate', ip: '127.0.0.1', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '4.13.0-37-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_141'

This works totally fine when using non-headless chrome.

Looks like a bug so I opened a bug here is the bug

Is there a workaround anyone knows of for this?

Answer 1

Oh blah!

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45372066/is-it-possible-to-run-google-chrome-in-headless-mode-with-extensions/45372648#45372648

Firefox supports headless extensions but not google chrome. :(

Answer 2

No, Google Chrome in headless mode doesn't supports extensions.

In the one of his comment, @alexclarke@chromium.org clearly mentioned:

I realize a lot of folks would like to use extensions with headless but unfortunately that's a large project which we have /no plans to do/. The problem is Headless Chromium is a content embedder which means it doesn't have access to anything from other content embedders such as chrome and unfortunately extensions are a chrome feature.

In another comment he further added, if you're using Selenium through DevTools you can build a proxy. You can filter URLs and modify headers via Network.setRequestInterception and Network.continueInterceptedRequest.