Trouble with headless browsing: PhantomJS and HtmlUnitDriver in Selenium WebDriver

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I’m having issues with headless browser automation. I’ve tried both PhantomJS and HtmlUnitDriver but no luck. I’m on a work network with a proxy, which might be causing problems.

Here’s my code for BrowserBot (instead of PhantomJS):

ConfigOptions opts = new ConfigOptions();
opts.enableJavascript(true);
opts.setBrowserPath("C:/Tools/BrowserBot/browserbot.exe");
WebController control = new BrowserBotController(opts);
control.setTimeout(30);
control.navigate("www.example.com");
System.out.println(control.getPageTitle());

And here’s my attempt with VirtualBrowser (instead of HtmlUnitDriver):

VirtualBrowser vb = new VirtualBrowser(true);
vb.enableJavascript();
vb.loadPage("http://www.example.com");
System.out.println("Page title: " + vb.getTitle());

Neither of these work. The page title never shows up, and I don’t get any errors. When I run BrowserBot, I see some startup info in the console, but then nothing happens.

Any ideas what might be going wrong? Could it be the proxy? I’m stumped!

2

Have you considered using Selenium with Chrome or Firefox in headless mode? These are often more reliable and up-to-date than PhantomJS or HtmlUnitDriver. For your proxy issue, you can set it up like this:

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addArguments("--headless");
options.setCapability("proxy", {
    "httpProxy": "http://proxy.example.com:8080",
    "sslProxy": "http://proxy.example.com:8080"
});
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

This approach might bypass the issues you’re facing with BrowserBot and VirtualBrowser. Also, ensure your browser drivers are up-to-date and compatible with your Selenium version. If problems persist, try running with verbose logging enabled to get more detailed error information.

3

As someone who’s dealt with similar headless browsing issues, I can relate to your frustration. Have you checked your network settings? Sometimes corporate firewalls can interfere with headless browsers. I once spent days debugging only to find out our IT department had blocked certain connections.

Another thing to consider is updating your WebDriver and browser versions. I’ve had success using ChromeDriver in headless mode with explicit waits:

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addArguments("--headless");
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
driver.get("http://www.example.com");
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
String title = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.titleIs("Expected Title"));
System.out.println("Page title: " + title);

This approach has been more reliable for me than PhantomJS or HtmlUnit. If you’re still having issues, try running without the headless flag first to see if it’s a browser-specific problem or related to the headless mode itself.

4

yo, have u tried puppeteer? its pretty slick for headless stuff. i had similar probs with phantomjs n switched to puppeteer. works like a charm. heres a quick example:

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto(‘https://example.com’);
console.log(await page.title());
await browser.close();

give it a shot n lemme kno how it goes!