How to run webdriver in IE browser?


To run selenium webdriver in IE browser, we need InternetExplorerDriver which is a standalone server which implements WebDriver's wire protocol.
First of all, download latest version of IEDriver server for webdriver. You can download latest version server from Download InternetExplorerEDriver
Note: Choose the IEdriver server based on your working environment as there are two different zip files for both 32 and 64 bit IE . Recommended 32bit IEDriver which is less prone to errors when compared with 64bit driver.
Save the downloaded file to your local machine.
In you code you need to set the system property for IE driver as
System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver", "pathofchromedriver\\IEDriverServer.exe");
Please find the below example program for running webdriver in IE browser. It has a test method which will validate google home page title once when the browser is opened.
package com.test;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterClass;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeClass;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class TestIEBrowser {
 
 static String driverPath = "IE driver path";
 public WebDriver driver;
 
 @BeforeClass
 public void setUp() {
  System.out.println("*******************");
  System.out.println("launching IE browser");
  System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver", driverPath+"IEDriverServer.exe");
  driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
  driver.manage().window().maximize();
 }
 
 @Test
 public void testGooglePageTitleInIEBrowser() {
  driver.navigate().to("http://www.google.com");
  String strPageTitle = driver.getTitle();
  System.out.println("Page title: - "+strPageTitle);
  Assert.assertTrue(strPageTitle.equalsIgnoreCase("Google"), "Page title doesn't match");
 }

 @AfterClass
 public void tearDown() {
  if(driver!=null) {
   System.out.println("Closing IE browser");
   driver.quit();
  }
 }
}
As we all know, InternetExplorerDriver works only with Windows system and the execution speed is slow Comparatively to other browsers.
However when working with InternetExplorerDriver there are some issues with mouse events when the browser window does not have focus, and attempting to hover over elements.
Your test scripts may work fine with Firefox and Chrome browsers which are intelligent enough find the elements in the DOM, but Internet Explorer is slow because of which you will end up with an exception.
To avoid issues when executing scripts with Internet explorer, try to use 'Css selectors' which will minimize your issues.

When ever working with Internet explorer browser for Selenium webdriver, the below are the common issues that you may come across.

1. If see issue some thing like 'Unexpected error launching Internet Explorer' below, You have to set 'Enable protected mode' option in all levels with same value.
org.openqa.selenium.remote.SessionNotFoundException: Unexpected error launching Internet Explorer. Protected Mode settings are not the same for all zones. Enable Protected Mode must be set to the same value (enabled or disabled) for all zones. (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 516 milliseconds
Please follow below steps to set:
1. Open Internet Explorer browser--> Select Internet Options from Tools menu
2. Select Security Tab --> Select Enable Protected Mode option -- > Check the default Zone level for 'Internet'. If you look at the screen shot below, security level for this zone is selected as 'Allowed level for this zone : Medium to High.' and 'Enable Protected Mode' option is Checked.
Zone level settings for IE driver
Now you need to make sure that, for the other Zones, such as 'Local Internet' and 'Trusted sites' is also selected as ABOVE. You may don't need to do anything with 'Restricted Site' option. We can leave the option as is and by default 'Enable Protected Mode' option will be Checked.
Now after changing the settings, please click on 'Apply' and 'Ok' button.
There is also an other alternative for setting the protected mode using desired capabilities as below: -
DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.internetExplorer();
capabilities.setCapability(InternetExplorerDriver.INTRODUCE_FLAKINESS_BY_IGNORING_SECURITY_DOMAINS,true);
But how ever, the first option is advised and it is not that hard to set internet explorer browser settings.
2. Make sure that the IE browser zoom level is set to 100% so that the native mouse events can be set to the correct coordinates.
3. It may be silly one, But make sure you provide correct path when setting the property of Internet explorer driver.
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