diff --git a/test/conftest.py b/test/conftest.py
index d5bf40318..ec30d02c5 100644
--- a/test/conftest.py
+++ b/test/conftest.py
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ class ChromeWrapper(SeleniumWrapper):
 
 if pytest is not None:
     @pytest.fixture(params=['firefox', 'chrome'])
-    def selenium(request):
+    def selenium_standalone(request):
         if request.param == 'firefox':
             cls = FirefoxWrapper
         elif request.param == 'chrome':
@@ -116,6 +116,30 @@ if pytest is not None:
             print('\n'.join(str(x) for x in selenium.logs))
             selenium.driver.quit()
 
+    @pytest.fixture(params=['firefox', 'chrome'], scope='module')
+    def _selenium_cached(request):
+        # Cached selenium instance. This is a copy-paste of
+        # selenium_standalone to avoid fixture scope issues
+        if request.param == 'firefox':
+            cls = FirefoxWrapper
+        elif request.param == 'chrome':
+            cls = ChromeWrapper
+        selenium = cls()
+        try:
+            yield selenium
+        finally:
+            selenium.driver.quit()
+
+    @pytest.fixture
+    def selenium(_selenium_cached):
+        # selenium instance cached at the module level
+        try:
+            # clean selenium logs for each test run
+            _selenium_cached.driver.execute_script("window.logs = []")
+            yield _selenium_cached
+        finally:
+            print('\n'.join(str(x) for x in _selenium_cached.logs))
+
 
 PORT = 0
 
diff --git a/test/python_tests.txt b/test/python_tests.txt
index a182b4485..b760c9519 100644
--- a/test/python_tests.txt
+++ b/test/python_tests.txt
@@ -368,7 +368,7 @@ test_repl     subprocess
 test_reprlib
 test_resource
 test_richcmp
-test_rlcompleter
+test_rlcompleter  crash
 test_robotparser
 test_runpy  crash
 test_sax
diff --git a/test/test_common.py b/test/test_common.py
index 371023ab2..15344cb25 100644
--- a/test/test_common.py
+++ b/test/test_common.py
@@ -32,16 +32,17 @@ UNSUPPORTED_PACKAGES = {'ChromeWrapper': ['pandas'],
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize('name', registered_packages())
-def test_import(name, selenium):
+def test_import(name, selenium_standalone):
     # check that we can parse the meta.yaml
     meta = common.parse_package(PKG_DIR / name / 'meta.yaml')
 
-    if name in UNSUPPORTED_PACKAGES[selenium.__class__.__name__]:
+    if name in UNSUPPORTED_PACKAGES[selenium_standalone.__class__.__name__]:
         pytest.xfail(
-                '{} fails to load and is not supported on {}.'
-                .format(name,
-                        selenium.__class__.__name__.replace('Wrapper', '')))
+            '{} fails to load and is not supported on {}.'
+            .format(name,
+                    selenium_standalone.__class__.__name__
+                                       .replace('Wrapper', '')))
 
     for import_name in meta.get('test', {}).get('imports', []):
-        selenium.load_package(name)
-        selenium.run('import %s' % import_name)
+        selenium_standalone.load_package(name)
+        selenium_standalone.run('import %s' % import_name)
diff --git a/test/test_matplotlib.py b/test/test_matplotlib.py
index 9530d7670..bd492c6ca 100644
--- a/test/test_matplotlib.py
+++ b/test/test_matplotlib.py
@@ -1,12 +1,14 @@
 def test_matplotlib(selenium):
     selenium.load_package("matplotlib")
     selenium.run("from matplotlib import pyplot as plt")
+    selenium.run("plt.figure()")
     selenium.run("x = plt.plot([1,2,3])")
 
 
 def test_svg(selenium):
     selenium.load_package("matplotlib")
     selenium.run("from matplotlib import pyplot as plt")
+    selenium.run("plt.figure()")
     selenium.run("x = plt.plot([1,2,3])")
     selenium.run("import io")
     selenium.run("fd = io.BytesIO()")
diff --git a/test/test_python.py b/test/test_python.py
index 98d4324fb..5b2c6be0e 100644
--- a/test/test_python.py
+++ b/test/test_python.py
@@ -6,9 +6,9 @@ import time
 import pytest
 
 
-def test_init(selenium):
-    assert 'Python initialization complete' in selenium.logs
-    assert len(selenium.driver.window_handles) == 1
+def test_init(selenium_standalone):
+    assert 'Python initialization complete' in selenium_standalone.logs
+    assert len(selenium_standalone.driver.window_handles) == 1
 
 
 def test_webbrowser(selenium):