karatelabs/karate · warning

Error closing driver

Error message

Error closing driver: {}

What it means

When no pool provider is configured, Karate closes the driver directly with `driver.quit()` at teardown. If quit throws, this warning is logged and teardown continues (`driver = null`). The browser process may be left running.

Solutions

1. Verify browser/driver logs to find why the session was already dead
2. Ensure driver binaries match the browser version
3. Add timeouts/stability fixes for the underlying step failure that preceded teardown
4. Clean up orphan browser processes at the CI job level

Example fix

# karate-config.js: pin driver versions to browser
karate.configure('driver', { type: 'chromedriver', webDriverUrl: 'http://localhost:9515' })
// and in CI: pkill -f chromedriver || true  (post-job cleanup)

try { driver.quit(); } catch (Exception e) { logger.warn("Error closing driver: {}", e.getMessage()); }

When it happens

Trigger: Direct driver close path where the browser session is already dead/invalid so `quit()` throws — e.g. chromedriver process killed, WebSocket to browser broken, or session id expired.

Common situations: Browser OOM-killed or crashed earlier in the scenario; force-stopped containers; long scenarios exceeding remote session timeouts; platform-specific driver crashes.

Related errors

• driver.stop=false — leaving browser running, scenario will…
• Error releasing driver to provider
• configure driver = } — bypassing driver pool; browser will…
• screenshotOnFailure: capture failed, continuing
• append() needs at least two arguments

AI-assisted analysis of karatelabs/karate@a22eb90246 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dd8d537a6eb5968b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at karate-core/src/main/java/io/karatelabs/core/ScenarioRuntime.java:2404

            // Release back to provider
            io.karatelabs.driver.DriverProvider provider = null;
            if (featureRuntime != null && featureRuntime.getSuite() != null) {
                provider = featureRuntime.getSuite().getDriverProvider();
            }
            if (provider != null) {
                try {
                    provider.release(this, driver);
                    logger.debug("Released driver to provider for scenario: {}", scenario.getName());
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    logger.warn("Error releasing driver to provider: {}", e.getMessage());
                }
            }
        } else {
            // Close directly
            try {
                driver.quit();
            } catch (Exception e) {
                logger.warn("Error closing driver: {}", e.getMessage());
            }
        }
        driver = null;
    }

    /**
     * Get the driver without initializing it.
     * Returns null if driver has not been initialized.
     * Used for checking if driver exists without side effects.
     */
    public Driver getDriverIfPresent() {
        return driver;
    }

    /**
     * Get the driver scope ("scenario" or "caller").
     */
    public String getDriverScope() {

View on GitHub (pinned to a22eb90246)