JsTestDriver firefox browser crash - linux

Question

I'm just starting out with JsTestDriver and I've created very simple demo code to see if I have configured my environment correctly. However about 40-50% of the time I'm getting the following error when Firefox is launched (via JsTestDriver) "Firefox Closed Unexpectedly While Starting".
This error does not occur if I use Chrome.
My environment consists of:
VirtualBox 4.1.18 running Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS 32bit
Firefox 13.0.1
JsTestDriver-1.3.4.b
openjdk-6-jre-headless
I'm executing:
java -jar /home/developer/bin/JsTestDriver.jar --port 9876 --browser /usr/bin/firefox --tests all --testOutput results
My JsTestDriver config is:
server: http://localhost:9876
load:
- src/*.js
test:
- test/*.js
timeout: 10
The source code (code under test) is:
Person = function()
{
this.firstName = "";
this.lastName = "";
this.fullName = function()
{
if((this.firstName != "") && (this.lastName != ""))
{
return this.lastName + ", " + this.firstName;
}
var name = this.firstName + " " + this.lastName;
return name.trim();
}
};
The test code (JsTestDriver based code) is:
PersonTest = TestCase("PersonTest");
PersonTest.prototype.testFullName = function()
{
fixture = new Person();
fixture.firstName = "John";
fixture.lastName = "Doe";
assertEquals("Doe, John", fixture.fullName());
};
PersonTest.prototype.testFullName_FirstNameOnly = function()
{
fixture = new Person();
fixture.firstName = "John";
assertEquals("John", fixture.fullName());
};
PersonTest.prototype.testFullName_LastNameOnly = function()
{
fixture = new Person();
fixture.lastName = "Doe"
assertEquals("Doe", fixture.fullName());
};
Thanks!

Answer 1

Your problem may be in that you're spinning up your server opening your browser every time you run your tests. I think a less error prone solution would be to start your server and have it capture some browsers, and then leave it running. Then you can run your tests against that server as needed. Our solution at work involves three virtual machines running IE7,IE8,IE9,Firefox, and Chrome all the time, and our Maven build process runs our javascript unit tests at every build. Also, make sure that you always use the '--reset' argument as well. It will keep your browsers fresh. I wrote a post that shows how to integrate QUnit, Requirejs, and code coverage with JSTD that is independent of Maven: js-test-driver+qunit+coverage+requirejs. Hope it helps.