[BUG] Getting chromium as undefined with playwright-core

Context:

• Playwright Version: [playwright-core -v1.2.0]
• Operating System: [Windows (Pro 10 - 1809) & Linux (Ubuntu 20.04)]
• Node version: [v14.4.0 on Windows, v12.18.0 on Linux (Ubuntu 20.04)]
• Browser: [Chromium]

Code Snippet

const { chromium } = require('playwright-core');

(async () => {
    try {
        const browser = await chromium.launch({
            headless: false,
            executablePath: 'c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe'
        });
        const context = await browser.newContext();
        const page = await context.newPage();
        await page.goto('http://whatsmyuseragent.org/');
        // await browser.close();
    } catch (err) {
        console.log(err);
    }
})();

Describe the bug Getting chromium as undefined

TypeError: Cannot read property 'launch' of undefined
    at C:\Users\Sudhakar_r_r\Desktop\test-playwright\index.js:5:40
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\Sudhakar_r_r\Desktop\test-playwright\index.js:16:3)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1200:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1220:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1049:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:937:14)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:71:12)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47

[tyrak]

We are developing (and running) a “desktop application” (think of something akin to the carlo architecture) using puppeteer. For various reasons we have made the decision to use the system-wide installation of chromium.

Controlling whether playwright downloads chromium with an environment variable is not very ergonomic: we have to set the variable in every dev box and in every box where we deploy our app; developers have to remember to do PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD=1 npm install instead of npm install (and similarly for npm update).

In general, the reason why package.json and package-lock.json are great is because you can record in them various decisions you have made (e.g. about your dependencies) without having to communicate them to other developers verbally or through documentation. These decisions then propagate to all boxes automatically. They are even versioned! Git remembers when you made changes to them. This lessens the cognitive load of working with the system.

In our current implementation, we have solved the issue of how to signify that we don’t want to use the bundled browser by specifying puppeter-core as a dependency instead of puppeter. It would be great if playwright provided a similar solution. I don’t know if this is the right issue to discuss this, if not, I can open a new one.

[aslushnikov]

This is fixed now.