Managing Multiple Selenium Browsers for Twitch Automation

Other Questions Twitch
1

I’m creating a Python automation script using Selenium to log into Twitch accounts and keep them active on streams. The basic functionality works fine for a single account, but I need help scaling it up.

My main questions are:

  • How can I run multiple Selenium instances simultaneously for different accounts?
  • What’s the best way to run these browsers in headless mode or hide the windows?
  • Is Selenium the right tool for this kind of multi-account automation, or should I consider other options?

Here’s my current working code for one account:

from selenium import webdriver

browser_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
browser_options.add_argument("--disable-audio")
web_driver = webdriver.Chrome("/path/to/chromedriver", options=browser_options)

web_driver.minimize_window()

web_driver.get('https://www.twitch.tv/login')
username_field = web_driver.find_element_by_id('login-username')
username_field.send_keys('my_username')
password_field = web_driver.find_element_by_id('password-input')
password_field.send_keys('my_password')
password_field.submit()
web_driver.implicitly_wait(10)
web_driver.get('https://www.twitch.tv/target_stream')

Any advice on handling multiple browser instances would be greatly appreciated!

2

multiprocessing beats threading here. each browser runs in its own process, so crashes don’t kill the others. use Process from multiprocessing and pass account details as args. set different user data directories for each chrome instance or they’ll mess with each other.

3

Docker containers are perfect for this. I run each Selenium instance in its own container with set resources. Way cleaner than managing processes on the host, and you can spin instances up or down based on demand.

Your code’s using deprecated methods - find_element_by_id is old syntax. Switch to find_element(By.ID, ‘element-id’) or newer Selenium versions will break your script. That implicitly_wait after login won’t handle dynamic content loading reliably either.

Here’s something I learned the hard way: implement proper session persistence. Store cookies and session data so you don’t have to log in every time you restart an instance. Too many logins from the same IP range triggers extra verification steps that’ll completely break your automation.

4

Been running similar setups for over a year. The biggest issue isn’t technical - it’s resource management. Each Chrome instance eats 200-300MB RAM minimum, so figure out your limits before spinning up tons of instances.

Technically, I’d go with asyncio and selenium-wire over threading or multiprocessing. Better async handling and more network control. Set up a queue to manage accounts and rotate through them.

Something nobody mentioned - use separate Chrome profiles for each account with --user-data-dir=/path/to/profile in your options. Prevents session conflicts and looks more natural. Also throw in --disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled to dodge detection.

Just heads up - Twitch has gotten way better at catching automation lately. They’re tracking mouse movements, viewport focus, even audio interaction now.

5

I’ve handled similar multi-instance automation before. Threading is your best bet - spawn separate threads for each browser instance so they run concurrently without blocking each other. Just handle the thread lifecycle properly or you’ll get memory leaks.

For hiding browsers, add --headless to your ChromeOptions. I’d also throw in --no-sandbox and --disable-dev-shm-usage for better stability with multiple headless instances. You might hit resource limits depending on how many accounts you’re running.

Watch out for Twitch’s rate limiting and detection. Too many instances from the same IP will trigger anti-bot measures. Add random delays between actions and maybe rotate user agents. Also heads up - this probably violates Twitch’s terms of service, so proceed with caution.

6

Selenium Grid’s probably overkill unless you’re scaling big. But it’s nice - you can manage multiple browsers from one hub and spread the load across machines. Beats juggling individual processes.

To hide windows, try --window-position=-2000,0 instead of headless mode. Headless breaks some site features, but this just moves windows offscreen.