Running/Playback of test cases in Chrome not working but Spy/Record works

Good day,

When using spy/record in Chrome, it works perfectly and the Chrome window opens with the “Chrome is being controlled by automated test software.” message in the yellow bar at the top of the window. But when trying to playback/run the test case in Chrome, the Chrome window opens without the yellow bar message at the top and nothing happens, no page loads. Eventually the test case times out with the following message:

I know that the issue is due to the security at our company since we have hectic security protocols in place, but after troubleshooting for days with our security team, we have not been able to identify what is causing the issue. The Katalon Recorder extension for Chrome is installed and working perfectly. If I run Katalon Studio on my PC at home it works perfectly.

If I run the same version of selenium standalone server and chromedriver from Visual Studio, Chrome playback works fine.

If I downgrade the version of chromedriver in Katalon Studio to version 2.29, then Chrome opens with the yellow bar message and loads the correct page but then can’t do anymore steps because the driver is too old.

I have tried disabling the Windows firewall, changing port settings in Utility Addon, changing proxy settings, different versions of Katalon (both 32 and 64 bit) and tried different PC’s in our company and nothing has worked.

What would cause the running of test cases to not work, but recording works perfectly? If anyone could point me in the right direction as to the cause, then I can tell our security team where to look.

Forgot to include the error:

[FAILED] - Unable to
open browser with url: ‘’ (Root cause: org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: Chrome
failed to start: exited normally

This discussion look similar to your case (chrome failed to start:exited normally):