Passing custom Chrome profile directory (user data dir) not working on Mac and Linux

[AJM-v]

Current behavior

We would like to use a custom Chrome profile directory for our Cypress tests. The application we are testing uses a Web SQL database which needs to be loaded into the Chrome browser. We tried this command which should be a valid chromium argument.

launchOptions.args.push('--user-data-dir=/Users/testuser/dev/chrome')

But when we run Cypress we see that the Chrome Profile Path is being overwritten by Cypress:

Desired behavior

The Chrome Profile Path from the launchOptions '--user-data-dir=/Users/testuser/dev/chrome' is used.

Test code to reproduce

Our setup:

• MacOs
• Chrome v93
• Cypress v8.4.0

The code we tried in our index.js (plugins folder):

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, launchOptions) => {

    launchOptions.args.push('--user-data-dir=/Users/testuser/dev/chrome')

    launchOptions.args.push('--auto-open-devtools-for-tabs')
  
    return launchOptions
  })

};

Steps to reproduce:

1. Add launchOptions argument with --user-data-dir like mentioned above
2. Open Cypress dashboard (npx cypress open)
3. Run 1 test in Chrome
4. Chrome browser opens, type chrome://version in URL bar
5. --user-data-dir=/Users/testuser/dev/chrome is listed in the Command Line panel, but I also see --user-data-dir=/Users/xxxxx/Library/Application Support/Cypress/cy/production/browsers/chrome-stable/interactive listed, and that is the Profile Path which is being used by Cypress

Cypress Version

8.4.0

Other

Also tested on a Windows 10 environment and there this code is working fine when testing headed in Chrome.

[AlexMurphy]

@AJM-v Did you find a solution to this?

We have a use case that also requires custom Chrome profiles,

[AJM-v]

@AJM-v Did you find a solution to this?

We have a use case that also requires custom Chrome profiles,

@AlexMurphy
Nope, our dev team is creating a workaround for the app we are testing so that we don't have to use a custom chrome profile.

[lughino]

Same issue here on mac.
Cypress team could you have a look please?

[mike1936]

Same issue on Windows, both --user-data-dir and --remote-debugging-port settings are overwritten.

[lucassardois]

This issue still happen on cypress version 12 when using the run command from the CLI such as npx cypress run --headed --no-exit --browser chrome. I guess it's because when we run cypress it generate a new temp chrome profile to make the test isolated and this override this setting.

Is there any workaround?

[zapplebee]

I can tell that Cypress is intentionally overwriting this arg here.

https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/blob/develop/packages/server/lib/browsers/chrome.ts#L692

But there seems to be no escape hatch to chose it yourself.

[PK-Tests]

Our case also requires this approach (we are setting up mic permissions before test).
I tried running this in plugins/index.js:

export default (on, config) => {
    on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, launchOptions) => {
        launchOptions.args.push('--user-data-dir=../chromeProfile/Default');
    })
}

[kaviththiranga]

We have the same requirement. We are trying to run VSCode (Electron) with cypress and we need to override --user-data-dir