Selenium ChromeDriver authentication (with C#) - selenium

Question

I've been trying to automate a simple process for two days now. I started with a web scraper (as I'd just finished a project using that), but quickly found this wasn't a good option. The site I need access to runs some scripts when the form posts, and I can't get it to work with the scraper. So I turned to HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse. Whole lot of banging my head against the wall, no dice. So I tried the Selenium ChromeDriver, and so far that's the closest I've come to getting this to work. I need to:
Load login page and submit login form (can't send in URL - doesn't work).
Load report form page.
Change field values.
Submit report form.
Download CSV response.
Here's my current code:
var username = _configuration.GetValue<string>("LoginCreds:username");
var password = _configuration.GetValue<string>("LoginCreds:password");
var driver = new ChromeDriver(#"C:\Users\path\to\libs");
driver.Url = "https://mydomain.loginpage.com";
driver.Navigate();
var usernameField = driver.FindElementById("username");
usernameField.SendKeys(username);
var passwordField = driver.FindElementById("password");
passwordField.SendKeys(password);
driver.FindElementById("submit").Submit();
// Handle browser version alert.
var alert = driver.SwitchTo().Alert();
alert.Dismiss();
var html = driver.PageSource;
Console.WriteLine(html); // This is the HTML of the authenticated page - as expected.
Console.ReadKey();
// Load report form page.
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("https://mydomain.reports.com");
html = driver.PageSource;
Console.WriteLine(html); // Now I get the login page HTML - authentication is lost.
Console.ReadKey();
So authentication seems to be working, but it doesn't persist. I need to be able to move about on the site after authenticating.

Answer 1

It's working now with the code I posted. Turned out I had multiple windows open, authenticated to that site, so even refreshing the page was posting back to the login page. Turns out that the ChromeDriver did the trick just fine. I was even able to download the CSV file I need, which is dynamically generated, so there isn't a static URL I can map to for downloading. Here's the working code:
var username = _configuration.GetValue<string>("LoginCreds:username");
var password = _configuration.GetValue<string>("LoginCreds:password");
var chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
chromeOptions.AddUserProfilePreference("download.default_directory", #"C:\Users\path\to\download\WorkingDirectory");
chromeOptions.AddUserProfilePreference("diable-popup-blocking", "true");
var driver = new ChromeDriver(#"C:\Users\path\to\libs", chromeOptions);
driver.Url = "https://mydomain.loginpage.com";
driver.Navigate();
driver.FindElementById("username").SendKeys(username);
driver.FindElementById("password").SendKeys(password);
driver.FindElementById("submit").Submit();
// Handle browser version alert.
driver.SwitchTo().Alert().Dismiss();
// Load report form page.
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("https://mydomain.reports.com");
driver.FindElementByName("Option1").Click();
driver.FindElementByName("Option2").Click();
driver.FindElementByName("Option3").Click();
driver.FindElementById("submit").Submit();
Thread.Sleep(30000);
driver.Close();
driver.Quit();
I wasn't able to find an elegant solution to close the browser and the console when the download completes. There are solutions posted that scan the download director for a completed file, but that was a lot of effort for little yield. Waiting for 30 seconds gives the CSV file plenty of time to download, and the browser/console cleanup isn't time-sensitive.