[BUG] debug.enable('pw:api') does not work in 1.25 (worked in 1.20)

Context:

• Playwright Version: 1.25.0
• Operating System: Mac
• Node.js version: 14.19.2

Describe the bug

This is regarding the logging that you get with DEBUG=pw:api.

I am upgrading from Playwright 1.20.1 to 1.25.0. We use Playwright with the Mocha testrunner, launched from a Node script.

The following works in Playwright 1.20.1, but does not work in Playwright 1.25.0 (no other changes):

import debug from 'debug';
debug.enable('pw:api')

Note that I get the logging if I set DEBUG=pw:api from the command line when starting up Node. It just doesn’t work when using the debug library like above.

[rwoll]

Thanks for your report! If you need logs, using the environment variable or Logger API are the correct ways of doing it.

To my knowledge:

import debug from 'debug';
debug.enable('pw:api')

is not documented to be supported by PW, and the fact it was working before was merely a coincidence. 😄 While convenient, the fact PW uses the debug package is an implementation detail that should not be depended upon. My best guess as to why it stopped working: we started bundling Playwright’s deps within the last few months so the PW package now has zero deps (https://www.npmjs.com/package/playwright-core)!

[rwoll]

Any chance the extra logger info will make it into 1.27?

There are no plans at the moment. (When we have an idea of a release milestone, we tag with v1.XY.)

Would you be open to contributing a PR?