[BUG] Google Cloud Function error (deploy)

[MaiaVinicius]

Context:

• Operating System: Linux
• Node version: Node.js 10
• Browser: Webkit
• Extra: [any specific details about your environment]

Code Snippet

const {chromium, webkit, firefox} = require('playwright');

(async () => {
      const browser = await webkit.launch({ headless: true });
      const context = await browser.newContext();
      const page = await context.newPage();
})();

Describe the bug

I'm trying to deploy my playwright application in Google Cloud Functions. It seems like there is a problem to spawn the browser.

Error: function terminated. Recommended action: inspect logs for termination reason. Details:
Failed to launch browser: Error: spawn /root/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium-764964/chrome-linux/chrome ENOENT

[aslushnikov]

@MaiaVinicius Google Cloud Functions environment is missing the needed libraries for webkit. And IIRC there's no way to add missing dependencies to Google Cloud from the user land :( The only hope is to submit a feature request to google cloud and hope they'll fix them.

If you end up filing this to Google, please post a link to the filed bug here for the future reference.

[aslushnikov]

Oh, wait!

Browser: Webkit

@MaiaVinicius I see you try launching webkit, but your error log is mentioning chrome:

Failed to launch browser: Error: spawn /root/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium-764964/chrome-linux/chrome ENOENT

Is this log correct?

[MaiaVinicius]

Actually, I have tried all 3 drivers (chrome, firefox and webkit). All returned the same error.

Thank you for the feedback.

@aslushnikov

[gluck]

Got this issue as well, I'm assuming that either firebase doesn't run install scripts, or doesn't wait for it to finish (install script is async, but nothing's waiting for it AFAICT).
Got it working by either:

• executing installBrowsersWithProgressBar within the function (and waiting for it), but it'll consume function bandwidth $$$
• using chrome-aws-lambda package, which bundles chrome linux binary in the npm package itself, and tricking playwright into using it

Although both of these are far from ideal 😿

[aslushnikov]

Got this issue as well, I'm assuming that either firebase doesn't run install scripts, or doesn't wait for it to finish (install script is async, but nothing's waiting for it AFAICT).

@gluck 🤷‍♂️ we're not very familiar with firebase, unfortunately...

I'll close this since it's unclear how we can help here.

[billfeng]

I'm getting this issue as well. Is it possible to add an option to bundle the browser being used as a part of the NPM package, instead of using the browser on-device?

[gluck]

Hi @billfeng, since my comment the situation has improved (a bit) and you can use the package 'playwright-core' to avoid downloading the browsers and chrome-aws-lambda package can be used to get a npm-packaged-chromium.
Two drawbacks with that approach:

• you need to match playwright version with chrome-aws-lambda so that chromium version is the expected one
• chrome-aws-lambda only works on cloud, and running locally won't work

Now that playwright has already tons of packaged ways (playwright-core, playwright-chromium ...), having another one like playwright-chromium-cloud would be ideal indeed.

[billfeng]

Hi @gluck, thanks for the info, this is very helpful! I will try the method you described. Quick questions -

• Do the chromium versions have to match exactly? The latest from chrome-aws-lambda is 856583, but the one that playwright installs is a close but different number, and there isn't a chrome-aws-lambda release with the exact match.
• How did you get playwright-core to use the chromium binary from chrome-aws-lambda?

Also, I made some interesting hacky progress with a different method. By forcing Firebase cloud functions to install the browser binaries locally through running PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH=0 npm i playwright as a postinstall script, and then setting executablePath to the browser binaries in node_modules, it seems to almost work, except then I get this different error:

error while loading shared libraries: libharfbuzz-icu.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I'm guessing playwright or the browser binary it installed needs this libharfbuzz-icu.so.0 thing? Is this a Linux package that the Ubuntu container of Firebase functions is missing? If this looks familiar to you at all or if you have any suggestions on how to get around this, that would be much appreciated too. I feel like I'm so close to getting it to work!

[gluck]

I'm currently using:

• playwright 1.6.2 (chromium 88.0.4324.0)
• chrome-aws-lambda 5.5.0 (chromium 88.0.4298.0)

Without issues (I had issues when the major version was different).

Pseudo code:

import { chromium } from 'playwright-core';
import * as bundledChromium from 'chrome-aws-lambda';

....
  const browser = await Promise.resolve(bundledChromium.executablePath).then(
      (executablePath) => {
        if (!executablePath) {
          // local execution
          return chromium.launch({});
        }
        return chromium.launch({ executablePath });
      }
    );

Your approach seems promising as well, not sure why the shared library is missing.

[tverilytt]

This seems to work well now (I have only tested with playwright-chromium).

Only initial issue was that the launch method did not find the executable:

browserType.launch: Failed to launch chromium because executable doesn't exist at /root/.cache/ms-playwright/chromium-888113/chrome-linux/chrome

Setting the environment variable PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH=0 resolved this, and I can now use playwright-chromium in Google Cloud Function to e.g. generate pdf 😃

Cheers
-jo

BTW - had to raise memory limit to 1 GB to avoid running out of memory...