SeleniumHQ/selenium · error · anyhow::Error

Wrong browser/driver version

Error message

Wrong browser/driver version

What it means

Raised in uncompress() (files.rs:193) via the PARSE_ERROR constant when the downloaded file's detected extension is XML or HTML. This signals that the download endpoint did not return a binary archive but an error page (e.g. a 404 HTML page, an XML error envelope), usually because the requested driver version was wrong or unavailable. The message is the constant 'Wrong browser/driver version'.

Source

Thrown at rust/src/files.rs:193

            target,
            log,
        )?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(PKG) {
        uncompress_pkg(compressed_file, target, log)?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(DMG) {
        uncompress_dmg(compressed_file, target, log, volume.unwrap_or_default())?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(EXE) {
        uncompress_sfx(compressed_file, target, log)?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(DEB) {
        uncompress_deb(compressed_file, target, log, volume.unwrap_or_default())?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(MSI) {
        install_msi(compressed_file, log, os)?
    } else if extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(XML) || extension.eq_ignore_ascii_case(HTML) {
        log.debug(format!(
            "Wrong downloaded driver: {}",
            fs::read_to_string(compressed_file).unwrap_or_default()
        ));
        return Err(anyhow!(PARSE_ERROR));
    } else {
        return Err(anyhow!(format!(
            "Downloaded file cannot be uncompressed ({} extension)",
            extension
        )));
    }

    Ok(())
}

pub fn uncompress_sfx(compressed_file: &str, target: &Path, log: &Logger) -> Result<(), Error> {
    let zip_parent = Path::new(compressed_file).parent().unwrap();
    log.trace(format!(
        "Decompressing {} to {}",
        compressed_file,
        zip_parent.display()
    ));

View on GitHub (pinned to aa36b38e69)

Solutions

1. Check Selenium Manager debug logs which print the HTML/XML body revealing the server's error.
2. Verify the requested driver/browser version exists on the official endpoint.
3. Re-run with auto version discovery (drop explicit --driver-version).
4. Confirm the mirror URL is correct and returns binary archives.

# Bash: detect HTML/XML error pages masquerading as driver archives
TYPE=$(file -b --mime-type "$FILE")
case "$TYPE" in
  text/html|application/xml|text/xml) echo "Download is an error page, not a driver"; exit 1;;
esac

match uncompress(file, target, &log, os, single, vol) {
    Ok(()) => (),
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("Wrong browser/driver version") => {
        eprintln!("Driver URL returned an error page; verify the version exists");
        return Err(e);
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

When it happens

Trigger: infer identifies the downloaded bytes as XML or HTML (line 188). The branch logs the file contents at debug level and returns Err(PARSE_ERROR). Typical when a driver version doesn't exist and the server returns an HTML 404 page saved as the driver archive.

Common situations: Requesting a chromedriver/edgedriver version that doesn't exist returns an HTML error page; a CDN serves an XML error envelope; version auto-detection picked a non-existent patch; mirror returns an error document with 200 status.

Related errors

• Unsuccessful response ({}) for URL {}
• Format for file {} cannot be inferred
• Downloaded file cannot be uncompressed ({} extension)
• {} {} not available for download on {} (minimum version: {})
• Error parsing JSON from URL {} {}

AI-assisted analysis of SeleniumHQ/selenium@aa36b38e69 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2858059b04303b79. Report an issue: GitHub.