Error 80070012: Unexpected error launching spoon based internet explorer

“Unexpected error launching internet explorer IELaunchURL error returned 80070012” while running Selenium Scripts in IE spoon browsers:

Problem/Issue:
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I was facing a very critical/weird issue(very easy after it got resolved :)) while running Selenium script in IE spoon browsers.. I was opening the Spoon browser through the Selenium standalone server in port 5555 and the server was running fine in the same port.

But while i was trying to execute the script in IE9 spoon it was throwing some error message(where the server is running) like “Unexpected error launching internet explorer IELaunchURL error returned 80070012” even after i have set all the protected mode as enabled, zoom level 100% and i was using the below code to open the IE browser in Spoon.

Code:

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.internetExplorer();

capabilities.setCapability(InternetExplorerDriver.INTRODUCE_FLAKINESS_BY_IGNORING_SECURITY_DOMAINS,true);

capabilities.setPlatform(Platform.WINDOWS);

capabilities.setCapability(“silent”, true);

driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(“http://localhost:5555/wd/hub”), capabilities);

Browser is opening perfectly but no URL is loading and throwing the above error message. The script is running fine in local(native) IE.

Machine Configuration:

Windows7 32 bit

IEDriver 32 bit

Selenium standalone server version: selenium-server-standalone-2.42.2.jar

Java Version: 1.6.0_45

Selenium Jar version: 2.42.2

Solution for the above Issue:
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For fixing i tried with lots of combinations like changing the Selenium Standalone server, changing the Java version, changing the IEDriver version, changing the Selenium bindings etc etc….but none of them worked for me…But the solution for the above issue is very very very very easy which i got after long a investigation. 🙂

The issue was if you upgrade or degrade the native IE browser which was installed during OS installation it will not allow to open the spoon browsers..every time we need to make the default IE browser then it will work.

e.g Suppose while you installed the OS the default IE version is IE8 and you upgraded to IE9 for some purpose…In this case it wont allow to navigate any application in the Spoon browsers(only browser will open up) and it will simply throw the error message like “Unexpected error launching internet explorer IELaunchURL error returned 80070012”

So during my OS installation it was IE8 but i had changed to IE9 for some reason and because of that it was showing such error…I degraded to the IE8 version and it worked for me….

I hope it will help your problem if you encounter such kind of issue..

Written By: – Sudhansu Panda, QA Engineer, Mindfire Solutions