error in selenium node when run as a cron job - selenium

Question

I am facing an unusual error while my selenium script tries to run automation tests by connecting to node which has been started using crontab (as shown below)
#reboot sh /home/selenium/automation/nodeStartUp.sh &
The nodeStartUp.sh content is shown below:
#!/bin/bash
java -jar /home/selenium/automation/selenium-server-standalone-3.0.0-beta3.jar -role node -nodeConfig /home/selenium/automation/node.json -log /home/selenium/automation/node.log
The error shown is as below: (Note: This error does not appear when I start the script manually and execute the testcases)
09:25:08.919 INFO [20] org.openqa.grid.internal.utils.SelfRegisteringRemote - Registering the node to the hub: http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:4444/grid/register
09:25:08.940 INFO [20] org.openqa.grid.internal.utils.SelfRegisteringRemote - The node is registered to the hub and ready to use
09:25:10.972 INFO [17] org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet - Executing: [new session: Capabilities [{browserName=chrome, version=, platform=ANY}]])
09:25:10.972 INFO [28] org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverProvider - Creating a new session for Capabilities [{browserName=chrome, version=, platform=ANY}]
09:25:10.973 WARN [17] org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet - Exception thrown
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
Build info: version: '3.0.0-beta3', revision: 'c7b525d', time: '2016-09-01 14:57:03 -0700'
System info: host: 'BLR-SOFT-195', ip: '127.0.1.1', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '3.13.0-96-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_101'
Driver info: driver.version: unknown
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:192)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession.execute(DefaultSession.java:183)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession.<init>(DefaultSession.java:119)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession.createSession(DefaultSession.java:95)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverSessions.newSession(DefaultDriverSessions.java:124)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.handler.NewSession.handle(NewSession.java:59)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.handler.NewSession.handle(NewSession.java:36)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.rest.ResultConfig.handle(ResultConfig.java:111)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.JsonHttpCommandHandler.handleRequest(JsonHttpCommandHandler.java:185)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet.handleRequest(DriverServlet.java:204)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet.doPost(DriverServlet.java:166)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:707)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet.service(DriverServlet.java:132)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:790)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:808)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle(ServletHandler.java:587)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.handler.ContextHandler.doHandle(ContextHandler.java:1127)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(ServletHandler.java:515)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.handler.ContextHandler.doScope(ContextHandler.java:1061)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:141)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:97)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.Server.handle(Server.java:499)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.HttpChannel.handle(HttpChannel.java:310)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.server.HttpConnection.onFillable(HttpConnection.java:257)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.io.AbstractConnection$2.run(AbstractConnection.java:540)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool.runJob(QueuedThreadPool.java:635)
at org.seleniumhq.jetty9.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool$3.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:555)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
Build info: version: '3.0.0-beta3', revision: 'c7b525d', time: '2016-09-01 14:57:03 -0700'
System info: host: 'BLR-SOFT-195', ip: '127.0.1.1', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '3.13.0-96-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_101'
Driver info: driver.version: unknown
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverProvider.callConstructor(DefaultDriverProvider.java:113)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverProvider.newInstance(DefaultDriverProvider.java:97)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverFactory.newInstance(DefaultDriverFactory.java:60)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession$BrowserCreator.call(DefaultSession.java:222)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession$BrowserCreator.call(DefaultSession.java:209)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultSession$1.run(DefaultSession.java:176)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
... 1 more
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
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:423)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DefaultDriverProvider.callConstructor(DefaultDriverProvider.java:103)
... 9 more
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: The path to the driver executable must be set by the webdriver.chrome.driver system property; for more information, see https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver. The latest version can be downloaded from http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html
at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkState(Preconditions.java:199)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.service.DriverService.findExecutable(DriverService.java:109)
at org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriverService.access$000(ChromeDriverService.java:32)
at org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriverService$Builder.findDefaultExecutable(ChromeDriverService.java:137)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.service.DriverService$Builder.build(DriverService.java:296)
at org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriverService.createDefaultService(ChromeDriverService.java:88)
at org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver.<init>(ChromeDriver.java:138)
... 14 more
09:25:10.974 WARN [17] org.openqa.selenium.remote.server.DriverServlet - Exception: The path to the driver executable must be set by the webdriver.chrome.driver system property; for more information, see https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver. The latest version can be downloaded from http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html
Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

It seems a problem related to chromedriver.
The path to the driver executable must be set by the
webdriver.chrome.driver system property; for more information, see
https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/ChromeDriver. The latest
version can be downloaded from
http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html
Where is your chromedriver located?
Which SO are you working in? Centos? Ubuntu? I recommend you to not run it in a cron. Instead you can create a service and see if it works:
Create a file in /etc/systemd/system/selenium-node.service
Add to the file:
[Unit]
Description=Run a selenium node
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar /route/to/selenium/selenium-server-standalone-2.52.0.jar -role node blablabla
Restart=on-abort
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
And run:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start selenium-node.service
Or you can add sh /home/selenium/automation/nodeStartUp.sh at the end of the init.d file (but thats not the best option too).