r - RSelenium: server signals port is already in use

Question

I'm using the following code in RSelenium to open a browser. After I close the browser, or even close the handler by running remDr$close(), the port is still in use. I have to go to the terminal and manually kill the process so that the same port becomes available. Is there any automated way such that RSelenium makes the port free after it finishes scraping?

So here is my code:

library(RSelenium)
rD <- rsDriver(verbose = FALSE,port=4444L)
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$close()

Thanks

Answer 1

The process is composed of two parts a server (the Selenium Server) and a client (the browser you initiate). The close method of the remoteDriver class closes the client (the browser). The server also needs to be stopped when you are finished.

To stop the server when you are finished:

library(RSelenium)
rD <- rsDriver(verbose = FALSE,port=4444L)
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$close()

Now either explicitly stop the server:

rD$server$stop()

or if the rD object is removed the server will be stopped upon garbage collection:

library(RSelenium)
rD <- rsDriver(verbose = FALSE,port=4444L)
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$close()
rm(rD)
gc()