Watir webdriver not working as expected - ruby

Question

I tried to execute a simple browser test
require 'rubygems'
require 'watir-webdriver'
b = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
b.goto 'http://www.google.com/'
The browser launched and closed immediately throwing the following error
c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/2.2.0/net/http/generic_request.rb:25:in `initialize': HTTP request path is empty (ArgumentError)
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/2.2.0/net/http/request.rb:14:in `initialize'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/http/default.rb:95:in `new'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/http/default.rb:95:in `new_request_for'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/http/default.rb:57:in `request'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/http/default.rb:88:in `request'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/http/common.rb:59:in `call'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/bridge.rb:649:in `raw_execute'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/bridge.rb:123:in `create_session'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/remote/bridge.rb:87:in `initialize'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/firefox/bridge.rb:55:in `initialize'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:53:in `new'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:53:in `for'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver.rb:84:in `for'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/watir-webdriver-0.9.1/lib/watir-webdriver/browser.rb:46:in `initialize'
from test.rb:3:in `new'
from test.rb:3:in `<main>'
HTTP request path is empty means what? is the calling parameters changed in new versions of watir?
Anyone faced similar problem?
My System is Windows 7 64 bit, I am running behind a proxy, the browser already configured with a proxy
---EDIT---
I have introduced a trailing slash, but I am getting a new error now and also getting the previous error, every time I have to change the code and save it to get this error
c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/firefox/launcher.rb:90:in `connect_until_stable': unable to obtain stable firefox connection in 60 seconds (127.0.0.1:7055) (Selenium::WebDriver::Error::WebDriverError)
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/firefox/launcher.rb:55:in `block in launch'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/socket_lock.rb:43:in `locked'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/firefox/launcher.rb:51:in `launch'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/firefox/bridge.rb:43:in `initialize'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:53:in `new'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/driver.rb:53:in `for'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/selenium-webdriver-2.53.4/lib/selenium/webdriver.rb:84:in `for'
from c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/gems/2.2.0/gems/watir-webdriver-0.9.1/lib/watir-webdriver/browser.rb:46:in `initialize'
from test.rb:8:in `new'
from test.rb:8:in `<main>'
---EDIT---
I have downloaded the geckodriver v0.10.0 from https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases and copy pasted the geckodriver.exe in to the firefox folder and also added the firefox folder to the PATH
I installed the selenium-webdriver beta version 3.0.0.beta2.1
But still I am getting the same error
c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/2.2.0/net/http/generic_request.rb:25:in `initialize': HTTP request path is empty (ArgumentError)
I have also tried installing the Firefox ESR version and added to PATH which is also not working
---EDIT---
I opened the file c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/2.2.0/net/http/generic_request.rb
and introduced print statement as follows
print "\n"
print uri_or_path
if URI === uri_or_path then
print "\ncoming to if part\n"
#uri = uri_or_path.dup
host = #uri.hostname.dup
host << ":".freeze << #uri.port.to_s if #uri.port != #uri.default_port
#path = uri_or_path.request_uri
raise ArgumentError, "no HTTP request path given" unless #path
else
print "\ncoming to else part\n"
#uri = nil
host = nil
raise ArgumentError, "no HTTP request path given" unless uri_or_path
raise ArgumentError, "HTTP request path is empty" if uri_or_path.empty?
#path = uri_or_path.dup
end
And I got the below output
/session
coming to else part
coming to else part
/shutdown
coming to else part
c:/ruby22/lib/ruby/2.2.0/net/http/generic_request.rb:29:in `initialize': HTTP request path is empty (ArgumentError)

Answer 1

Try entering those commands in IRB, a line at a time. that will make it clearer where the failure is occuring
Your initial error indicated it was failing on line 3,which in your code above is where it tries to create a new instance of a browser object (which also launches firefox, and then tries to connect the browser object to the actual browser). If that's not working it's usually because you are not using a version of webdriver that supports your browser. Perhaps you have a brand new firefox, and need to update webdriver.
Sometimes there is a brief window after a new FF comes out (every 6 weeks) that introduced a breaking change, where we don't have an updated webdriver gem that supports that version.

Answer 2

Most likely you were seeing this due to a bug in Firefox 47.0. You need to update to Firefox 47.0.1 for it to work with Selenium 2.53.4.