Unable to bind to locking port 7054 within 45000 ms - selenium

Question

While running automation in webdriver standalone server, i get this exception randomly. Once it comes, I killed all java process . So what is the solution for this exception ? Why it comes randomly ?
Unfortunately as far as i know, all have suggested to use latest version of selenium jar or come compatible firefox version depending on the selenium version or they have said to check if that port is on use (though it won't!) or reboot system.Few have suggested to uninstall firefox version and reinstall it. Any permanent solution or any idea why it comes?
org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Unable to bind to locking port 7054 within 45000 ms
Build info: version: '2.30.0', revision: 'dc1ef9c', time: '2013-02-19 00:15:27'
System info: os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.7.0'
Driver info: driver.version: FirefoxDriver
Command duration or timeout: 47.94 seconds
Build info: version: '2.28.0', revision: '18309', time: '2012-12-11 15:53:30'
System info: os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.7.0'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver

Answer 1

Seems like previous webDriver instance (or something else) didn't release the port. Here is workaround (bad practice) for this problem (Java):
public static FirefoxBrowser forceInit() {
try {
return new FirefoxBrowser();
} catch (WebDriverException exc) {
return forceInit();
}
}
Make sure your tests close driver correctly by:
driver.quit();

Answer 2

Make sure that you don't have any WebDriver Firefox windows open!

Answer 3

Although the issue/question is from quite some time, I faced same one today on Windows environment. I manage to resolve it with a simple machine reboot.
I encourage you to do this first before everything else.
OS Windows 7
selenium-server version : 2.35.0

Answer 4

I had the same issue with firefox 47.0 and selenium-webdriver 2.45.1 on fedora 23. The problem was fixed by using firefox version 41. (Version 42 was tested and worked as well.) To install ff41 on fedora using a terminal run:
dnf install firefox-41.0.1-2.fc23

Answer 5

Just in case it could help someone, I solved this error removing any reference to localhost from my hosts file in Windows (I'm executing the tests remotely from Linux to Windows)

Answer 6

Kill firefox by going to Task Manager, this may help.