Running both Chrome and IE 11 Protractor tests - selenium-webdriver

Question

Running Protractor E2E tests against both Chrome and IE is difficult.
I can run them separately, however I need to start/stop the respective Chrome/IE webdriver server before running each tests.
In my conf.js file, I export the config options like this :
exports.config = {
seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub',
specs: [
'spec/my-spec.js',
],
directConnect: false, // false when targeting IE, and selen addr is used
multiCapabilities: [
{
browserName: 'chrome'
}
,
{
browserName: 'internet explorer',
'version': '11'
}
]
}
For the standard Chrome tests, I can kick off the Webdriver server:
> webdriver-manager start
But for IE, I discovered a way to run Webdriver IE as follows (yeah, pretty ugly):
java -Dwebdriver.ie.driver=C:\Projects\GSDashboard-E2ETests\node_modules\protractor\node_modules\webdriver-manager\selenium\IEDriverServer_x64_2.53.1.exe -jar C:\Projects\GSDashboard-E2ETests\node_modules\protractor\node_modules\webdriver-manager\selenium\selenium-server-standalone-2.53.1.jar
Then I just launch the Protractor tests:
protractor protractor.conf.js
I'm searching around for a cleaner and smoother way of running both IE/Chrome e2e tests in one shot.
Is there a solution to this ?
Any advice/guidance is appreciated....
****** UPDATE ******
As per answer below, trying to use seleniumArgs as follows (where I can specify the jar file OR the IEDriverServer_x64_2.53.1.exe file :
exports.config = {
//seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub', // comment out
seleniumArgs: ['-Dwebdriver.ie.driver=C:\Projects\Dashb-E2ETests\node_modules\protractor\node_modules\webdriver-manager\selenium\IEDriverServer_x64_2.53.1.exe'],
allScriptsTimeout: 50000,
specs: [
'spec/MY-spec.js',
],
directConnect: false, // false when targeting IE, and selen addr is used
multiCapabilities: [
//{
// browserName: 'chrome',
,
{
browserName: 'internet explorer',
'version': '11'
}
]
}
BUT running the test throws this error in a windows cmd prompt:
E/launcher - The path to the driver executable must be set by the web driver.ie.driver system property; for more information, see https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/InternetExplorer‌​Driver.
So, I still haven't figured out how to run both IE and Chrome tests (sequentially).
regards,
Bob

Answer 1

I had a similar problem and the solution was running this:
webdriver-manager update --ie
After that, both IE11 and Chrome instances run simultaneously with:
multiCapabilities: [
{
browserName: 'chrome'
}
,
{
browserName: 'internet explorer',
'version': '11'
}
]

Answer 2

include seleniumArgs: ['-Dwebdriver.ie.driver=pathtoIEdriver/IEDriverServer.exe'] property in the conf.js and remove seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub'.If no seleniumAddress is mentioned ,then protractor will automatically start selenium server. So following will be your conf.js for running your protractor test against chrome and ie.
exports.config = {
seleniumArgs: ['-Dwebdriver.ie.driver=node_modules/protractor/selenium/IEDriverServer.exe'],
specs: [
'spec/my-spec.js',
],
directConnect: false, // false when targeting IE, and selen addr is used
multiCapabilities: [
{
browserName: 'chrome'
}
,
{
browserName: 'internet explorer',
'version': '11'
}
]
}