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org.openqa.selenium.remote.UnreachableBrowserException: Error communicating with the remote browser. It may have died with ChromeDriver and Selenium

I'm running a bunch of test cases every hour using selenium-java 3.12.0; TestNG; Selenoid with docker, Jenkins. Sometimes (about 1 out of 10 cases) I get the error:

org.openqa.selenium.remote.UnreachableBrowserException: Error communicating with the remote browser. It may have died.
Build info: version: '3.6.0', revision: '6fbf3ec767', time: '2017-09-27T15:28:36.4Z'
System info: host: 'autotest.rvkernel.com', ip: '94.130.165.217', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '4.13.0-26-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_181'
Driver info: driver.version: RemoteWebDriver
Capabilities [{mobileEmulationEnabled=false, hasTouchScreen=false, platform=LINUX, acceptSslCerts=false, acceptInsecureCerts=false, webStorageEnabled=true, browserName=chrome, takesScreenshot=true, javascriptEnabled=true, platformName=LINUX, setWindowRect=true, unexpectedAlertBehaviour=, applicationCacheEnabled=false, rotatable=false, networkConnectionEnabled=false, chrome={chromedriverVersion=2.39.562737 (dba483cee6a5f15e2e2d73df16968ab10b38a2bf), userDataDir=/tmp/.org.chromium.Chromium.gURWcu}, takesHeapSnapshot=true, pageLoadStrategy=normal, unhandledPromptBehavior=, databaseEnabled=false, handlesAlerts=true, version=67.0.3396.62, browserConnectionEnabled=false, nativeEvents=true, locationContextEnabled=true, cssSelectorsEnabled=true}]
Session ID: 56c4b100a95d89b3d5702ec8a1a0698a
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:564)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.execute(RemoteWebElement.java:276)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebElement.click(RemoteWebElement.java:83)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.events.EventFiringWebDriver$EventFiringWebElement$1.invoke(EventFiringWebDriver.java:376)
    at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy14.click(Unknown Source)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.events.EventFiringWebDriver$EventFiringWebElement.click(EventFiringWebDriver.java:389)
    at com.Elements.Element.lambda$click$2(Element.java:99)
    at org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.FluentWait.until(FluentWait.java:208)
    at com.Elements.Element.click(Element.java:98)
    at com.Elements.Element.click(Element.java:78)
    at com.pages.landing.social.MailRuRegisterPage.clickRegister(MailRuRegisterPage.java:37)
    at RulVulaknTests.authorization.AuthorizationTest.authorizationUserFromMailRU(AuthorizationTest.java:100)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at org.testng.internal.MethodInvocationHelper.invokeMethod(MethodInvocationHelper.java:124)
    at org.testng.internal.Invoker.invokeMethod(Invoker.java:571)
    at org.testng.internal.Invoker.invokeTestMethod(Invoker.java:707)
    at org.testng.internal.Invoker.invokeTestMethods(Invoker.java:979)
    at org.testng.internal.TestMethodWorker.invokeTestMethods(TestMethodWorker.java:125)
    at org.testng.internal.TestMethodWorker.run(TestMethodWorker.java:109)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot decode response content: 
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.AbstractHttpResponseCodec.decode(AbstractHttpResponseCodec.java:83)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.AbstractHttpResponseCodec.decode(AbstractHttpResponseCodec.java:44)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.HttpCommandExecutor.execute(HttpCommandExecutor.java:158)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:543)
    ... 28 more
Caused by: org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonException: java.io.EOFException: End of input at line 1 column 1 path $
Build info: version: '3.6.0', revision: '6fbf3ec767', time: '2017-09-27T15:28:36.4Z'
System info: host: 'autotest.rvkernel.com', ip: '94.130.165.217', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '4.13.0-26-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_181'
Driver info: driver.version: RemoteWebDriver
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonInput.execute(JsonInput.java:172)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonInput.peek(JsonInput.java:72)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonTypeCoercer.lambda$null$6(JsonTypeCoercer.java:136)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonTypeCoercer.coerce(JsonTypeCoercer.java:122)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.Json.toType(Json.java:62)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.Json.toType(Json.java:52)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.AbstractHttpResponseCodec.decode(AbstractHttpResponseCodec.java:80)
    ... 31 more
Caused by: java.io.EOFException: End of input at line 1 column 1 path $
    at com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader.nextNonWhitespace(JsonReader.java:1401)
    at com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader.consumeNonExecutePrefix(JsonReader.java:1576)
    at com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader.doPeek(JsonReader.java:534)
    at com.google.gson.stream.JsonReader.peek(JsonReader.java:425)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonInput.lambda$peek$0(JsonInput.java:73)
    at org.openqa.selenium.json.JsonInput.execute(JsonInput.java:168)
    ... 37 more

And after this error all remained tests are skipped.

Versions of chrome browser using which I have encountered the error - 66, 67.

Solution

This error message...

org.openqa.selenium.remote.UnreachableBrowserException: Error communicating with the remote browser. It may have died.

...implies that the RemoteWebDriver instance was closed abruptly.

Your code trials would have been of some help to debug the issue. Perhaps yout main issue can be one of the following:

You have mentioned that you are using selenium-java 3.12.0 but your error trace logs mentions about selenium-java 3.6.0. So possibly there are multiple instances of selenium-java referenced within this project. So you need to ensure that your project is configured with only one set of selenium-java binaries.
As per best practices:
- Upgrade Selenium to current levels Version 3.14.0.
- Upgrade ChromeDriver to current ChromeDriver v2.41 level.
- Keep Chrome version between Chrome v66-68 levels. (as per ChromeDriver v2.41 release notes)
- (WindowsOS only) Use CCleaner tool to wipe off all the OS chores before and after the execution of your Test Suite.
- (LinuxOS only) Free Up and Release the Unused/Cached Memory in Ubuntu/Linux Mint before and after the execution of your Test Suite.
- If your base Web Client version is too old, then uninstall it through Revo Uninstaller and install a recent GA and released version of Web Client.
As you have mentioned running a bunch of test cases every hour possibly there are multiple dangling instances of ChromeDriver and Chrome which can be viewed through the process list (Linux OS) or TaskManager (Windows OS). You need to always invoke driver.quit() within tearDown(){} method to close & destroy the WebDriver and Web Client instances gracefully.
If the dangling instances of WebDriver and Web Browser still persists consider killing them with brute force. You can find a detailed discussion in Selenium : How to stop geckodriver process impacting PC memory, without calling driver.quit()?
Incase you program is attempting to set up TCP connections from ports that are greater than 5000 you can refer this article
References