'Socket hang up' errors started occurring consistently (but intermittently on different tests/steps) after 8-11 scenarios in a wdio-cucumber-framework feature file

[osmolyar]

The following 'socket hang up' error occurs on different steps starting on the 8th to 11th scenario in a given feature file, where the previous scenarios, usually with the same sequence of steps as the failing one, run fine. Up until last November, all were running fine and passing, for ~1yr.

The subsequent 4 tests also fail with 'socket hang up', while the following few tests will fail with error 'A session id is required for this command but wasn't found in the response payload', and then will start passing again.

A new session is started with each scenario, as browser.reload() gets called on starting a scenario. The initial 'socket hang up' error occurs usually 4-5 steps into the scenario, while subsequent ones occur on the first step of the scenario.

This is on Chrome, and was working perfectly until ~last November. Similar intermittent 'A session id is required for this command but wasn't found in the response payload' errors had always occurred on IE10 and IE11 (with no 'socket hang up').

It happens with every feature file run, both using selenium-standalone locally, wdio testrunner and Selenium Grid Extras via Jenkins.

"Error: socket hang up
at createHangUpError (_http_client.js:302:15)
at Socket.socketOnEnd (_http_client.js:394:23)
at emitNone (events.js:91:20)
at Socket.emit (events.js:186:7)
at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:974:12)
at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:74:11)
at process._tickDomainCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:122:9)"

Environment (please complete the following information):

selenium-standalone 3.141.0

WebdriverIO version: 4.8.0
Mode: Both
If WDIO Testrunner, running sync/async: sync
Node.js version: 8.9.0
NPM version: 5.6.0
Browser name and version: Chrome 71.0.3578.98
--Driver: Chromedriver 2.45.0
Platform name and version: Any : Windows 10, Windows 8.1
Additional wdio packages used (if applicable):
wdio-cucumber-framework: 1.1.0