Running Selenium WebDriver tests with JavaScript disabled

One of our internal applications (written in angularjs) has a special error box appearing if javascript is disabled in the browser (using noscript ), similar to the one on stackoverflow:

I'm trying to write an automated test for it, but having difficulties.

We are using protractor, but I'm pretty sure this is not about it. Here is the protractor configuration file:

'use strict';

var helper = require('./helper.js');

exports.config = {
    seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub',
    baseUrl: 'http://localhost:9001',

    capabilities: helper.getFirefoxProfile(),

    framework: 'jasmine',
    allScriptsTimeout: 20000,

    jasmineNodeOpts: {
        showColors: true,
        isVerbose: true,
        includeStackTrace: true
    }
};

where helper.js is:

var q = require('q');
var FirefoxProfile = require('firefox-profile');

exports.getFirefoxProfile = function() {
    var deferred = q.defer();

    var firefoxProfile = new FirefoxProfile();
    firefoxProfile.setPreference("javascript.enabled", false);
    firefoxProfile.encoded(function(encodedProfile) {
        var capabilities = {
            'browserName': 'firefox',
            'firefox_profile' : encodedProfile,
            'specs': [
                '*.spec.js'
            ]
        };
        deferred.resolve(capabilities);
    });

    return deferred.promise;
};

As you see, we are setting javascript.enabled firefox preference to false which has been proven to work if you manually open up about:config in firefox, change it to false - you would see the contents of noscript section.

But, when I run the tests, I am getting the following error:

Exception thrown org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: waiting for evaluate.js load failed

Here is the complete traceback.

FYI, selenium 2.44.0 and firefox 33.1.1 are used.

As far as I understand (with the help of several points raised here), disabling javascript is killing the javascript webdriver itself. Is it true? If yes, what are my options or workarounds?

---

Notes:

• 
  

  in case of chrome, in the past it was possible to disable javascript via --disable-javascript command-line argument, but not anymore.

  
  


• 
  

  this leads to a workaround number 0 - downgrade chrome to an old version which supported the command-line flag - this would be a not-tested plan B

  
  


• 
  

  setting javascript.enabled=false firefox preference works with python selenium bindings:

  
  

  
  from selenium import webdriver
  
  profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
  profile.set_preference('javascript.enabled', False)
  driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile)
  
  driver.get('https://my_internal_url.com')
  # no errors and I can assert the error is present
  
  

^{I'm open to any suggestions and can provide you with any additional information.}