tunerooster has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

When I run the command: 
/usr/bin/chromium --user-data-dir=/home/rwk/chrome-session-for-walmart
+ https://grocery.walmart.com/orders

[download]
from a shell, chrome properly logs me in (from walmart cookies) and gets/displays my order page. However when I run the code below (same data dir, same chrome binary, same page) it *fails* to read the walmart login cookies and instead gets the walmart login page (as I can see in /tmp/out.html). The login page uses captchas, so the cookie approach is the only option to gain login status, but it is not working.

I have been searching the web and the perl docs for days with no success. How can I make WMC load my order page? 

use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
use WWW::Mechanize::Chrome;
 
Log::Log4perl->easy_init($ERROR);  # Set priority of root logger to ER
+ROR
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Chrome->new(
    headless => 1,
    start_url => 'https://grocery.walmart.com/orders',
    data_directory => '/home/rwk/chrome-session-for-walmart',
    incognito => 0,
    launch_exe => '/usr/bin/chromium',
    );
$mech->allow(javascript => 1);
my $txt = $mech->content;
open($f, '>', '/tmp/out.html');
print $f $txt;
close $f;

[download]

P.S. From another post, I am told that without headless mode, two windows open (a known bug), with WMC attached to an incognito window (which understandably does not read the cookies - no account). I have not found a way around this.

P.P.S. My understanding is that using: data_directory => '/home/rwk/chrome-session-for-walmart' should allow WMC to save/load cookies automatically. Is that correct?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: WWW::Mechanize::Chrome doesn't load/use cookies
by nysus (Parson) on May 23, 2020 at 14:40 UTC
[reply]
      Thanks...

      Both the shell command and perl script are using /usr/bin/chromium.

      How is the "profile" option different from: data_directory => '/home/rwk/chrome-session-for-walmart'.

      In the chromiun man page it says:

      --user-data-dir=DIR
              Specifies the directory that user data (your "profile") 
+is kept  in.   Defaults  to
              ~/.config/chromium  .   Separate  instances of Chromium 
+must use separate user data
              directories; repeated  invocations  of  chromium-browser
+  will  reuse  an  existing
              process for a given user data directory.

      [download]

      In the WMC doc it says:

      profile
profile => '/path/to/profile/directory'  #  set the profile directory
By default, your current user profile directory is used. Use this sett
+ing to change the profile directory for the browsing session.

data_directory
data_directory => '/path/to/data/directory'  #  set the data directory
By default, the current data directory is used. Use this setting to ch
+ange the base data directory for the browsing session.

      [download]

      What's the difference between "profile directory" and "data directory"?

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

        The profile option is used for the Chrome --profile-directory option, but that doesn't change anything for me. What works for getting the "current" cookies is the data_directory option.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
Re: WWW::Mechanize::Chrome doesn't load/use cookies
by JediMasterT (Sexton) on May 24, 2020 at 12:34 UTC
    Random debugging thought: Try starting the instance normally (removing the "start_url" option) and navigating to the url you're looking for.
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom