Watir Raising Error, "Net::ReadTimeout: Net::ReadTimeout with #<TCPSocket:(closed)>" When Attempting To Create New Browser

Question

I am working on a rails application that pulls data from a REST endpoint and then scrapes a production website that consumes said endpoint to ensure the contents is present and displaying correctly. I have had pretty good luck with Nokogiri. However, we have a few react pages that load dynamically. Nokogiri cannot handle the dynamic content.

I am attempting to use the gem Watir. It appears to be exactly what I need. However, every time I attempt to run Watir::Browser.new the following exception is thrown:

Net::ReadTimeout: Net::ReadTimeout with #<TCPSocket:(closed)>
from /home/thomas/.rbenv/versions/2.6.7/lib/ruby/2.6.0/net/protocol.rb:217:in `rbuf_fill'

All pages I have attempted to hit do load in a timely manor in the regular chrome browser. I have checked firewall setting and disabled my company's VPN. Still no luck.

I just recently setup the watir gem and installed the chromium driver by running, sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver.

Would anyone know why Watir would fail in this way?

Environment:

• Ubuntu 18.04 with WSL
• Ruby 2.6.7
• Rails 6.1.4
• Watir 6.19.1