Back to Interview Prep

</>

Technology

Scenario-Based

Difficulty

Advanced

Experience

3-5 Years

Type

Scenario-Based

AutomateQA Team

QA Automation Engineers

June 15, 2026

Interview Question

Your Selenium script works locally but fails in CI/CD. How do you fix it?

Answer

Script Works Locally but Fails in CI/CD — Diagnosis Guide

This is one of the most common real-world Selenium problems. Work through these causes in order:

Root Cause 1 — Missing Headless Mode

CI servers have no display. You must run headless:

Java

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addArguments("--headless=new");
options.addArguments("--no-sandbox");            // required in Docker/Linux
options.addArguments("--disable-dev-shm-usage"); // prevents memory crashes
options.addArguments("--disable-gpu");
options.addArguments("--window-size=1920,1080"); // headless has no screen size

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

Root Cause 2 — Timing / Waits

CI machines are slower than your dev machine. Replace all Thread.sleep() with proper waits:

Java

// Bad
Thread.sleep(3000);

// Good
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(15));
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.id("result")));

Root Cause 3 — Browser/Driver Version Mismatch

Pin versions in CI to match what's installed:

Java

// Use WebDriverManager to auto-manage driver versions
WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

Or in pom.xml:

XML

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
    <artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
    <version>5.7.0</version>
</dependency>

Root Cause 4 — File Paths

Local absolute paths break in CI:

Java

// Bad
String filePath = "C:\\Users\\nagen\\test.csv";

// Good — relative to project root
String filePath = System.getProperty("user.dir") + "/src/test/resources/test.csv";

Root Cause 5 — Environment Config

Use environment variables or property files for URLs and credentials:

Java

String baseUrl = System.getenv("BASE_URL");
// Set BASE_URL in Jenkins/GitHub Actions env config

CI/CD Failure Checklist

Issue	Fix
No display	Add `--headless=new` flag
Element not found	Increase explicit waits
Driver not found	Use WebDriverManager
Wrong path	Use relative paths
Wrong URL	Use env variables
Memory crash	`--disable-dev-shm-usage`
Screenshot on fail	Capture in `@AfterMethod`