[Feature] extension message passing in non-persistent context

[leonardodino]

Context:

• Playwright Version: 1.5.1, 1.6.1
• Operating System: Mac (local) Linux (via CI)
• Node.js version: 14.x
• Browser: Chromium
• Extra: non-headless

Code Snippet

chrome.tabs.sendMessage fails on fails on chromium.launch, but not on chromium.launchPersistentContext

// @filename content.js
chrome.runtime.sendMessage(undefined, message)


// @filename background.js
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener((message, sender) => {
  if (typeof sender?.tab?.id !== 'number') return
  chrome.tabs.sendMessage(sender.tab.id, message, { frameId: 0 }) // 💥
})

💥 "Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist."

Describe the bug

I've created a repo to further describe and isolate this bug.

the only dependencies are node and playwright itself.

the log on GitHub Actions help with visualising the mismatch between the persistent context and the default ones.

I wasn't able to reproduce it on a Chromium Incognito window locally. 🤔

[aslushnikov]

I wasn't able to reproduce it on a Chromium Incognito window locally. 🤔

@leonardodino by default, extensions don't run in incognito windows in Chromium (so they don't run for you in the Playwright default context). I tried with your extension, and it doesn't run in incognito as well. Could it be that you explicitly enable it in extension settings?

[leonardodino]

Hey there @aslushnikov thanks for the quick turn around!

sorry! I indeed wrote it a bit weird 😅
I was able to get it working on chrome+chromium install, after enabling this flag.

The extension fails when running on playwright (and puppeteer) in a way that I'm not able to reproduce on regular browsers:

browser	persistent	incognito
chrome
chromium
playwright

---

I'm also enabling the "run in incognito" on the plawright run. 😄

(the first console.log checks that the extension's content.js successfully ran and has injected a div)

$ node .
==== persistent ====
DOM insertion: true
clock updated: true
==== inconigto ====
DOM insertion: true
clock updated: false 

[pavelfeldman]

chrome.tabs.sendMessage fails on fails on chromium.launch, but not on chromium.launchPersistentContext

This is by design. At this point, support for extensions in Playwright is in the best effort mode. We focus on the cross-browser web testing instead. In order to test extensions, you should run Playwright in a mode that is as close to the regular execution as possible, in this case it means running it as chromium.launchPersistentContext and specifying the user data dir.

[leonardodino]

Hey, thanks again for the support (:

This is by design. At this point, support for extensions in Playwright is in the best effort mode. We focus on the cross-browser web testing instead.

Fully understand and support this decision! 🙌 extensions are indeed an edge-case.
and I'm happy they are supported, even if by chance! 😄

running it as chromium.launchPersistentContext and specifying the user data dir.

yep, using it currently, together with jest-playwright and everything works. 💯

just wanted to report because it took me a good while to understand why it was failing 😅
hopefully can save some minutes/hours for the next one.

[pavelfeldman]

Thank you for reporting this issue and providing comments to those that might be facing a similar problem. I am now closing this as a part of the triage, please feel free to file a new issue with additional details. Given the limited resource and a lot of requests, we need to fulfill most popular requests and at the same time keep our issue database manageable.