install-browser is a no-op: always prints 'Browser ... is not installed' for the browser it was told to install
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 65/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Active
- Tech stack
- javascript, node.js
Research direction
Start at the playwright-cli install-browser entry point and compare its browser resolution with npx playwright install chromium and the shared Playwright cache. Reproduce with Chromium and Firefox, then verify that installation downloads the matching build and that a subsequent playwright-cli open --browser=chromium succeeds.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
playwright-cli install-browser <browser> does not install anything and always answers as if it were the "not installed" error, on this machine and for every browser kind.
Reproduced 2026-09-19, macOS 25.5.0 arm64:
$ playwright-cli --version
1.59.0-alpha-1771104257000
$ playwright-cli open --browser=chromium https://example.com
Browser "chromium" is not installed. Run `playwright-cli install-browser chromium` to install
$ playwright-cli install-browser chromium
Browser "chromium" is not installed. Run `playwright-cli install-browser chromium` to install
Observed behaviour:
install-browserperforms no download and exits with the "not installed" message for the browser it was told to install (the message even names chromium when invoked withfirefox).npx playwright install chromiumsucceeds and populates the standard cache (~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/chromium-1243,chromium_headless_shell-1243), butplaywright-cli open --browser=chromiumstill reports "chromium is not installed" — the alpha CLI appears to expect a different registry/revision or a daemon restart thatplaywright-cli kill-alldoes not fix.
Expected: install-browser chromium downloads the matching browser build and a subsequent open succeeds.
Workaround used: drive the same flows through the playwright npm package directly (npm i playwright && node script.mjs), which resolves chromium-1243 from the shared cache.
- Dominant language
- JavaScript
- Stars
- 13.4k
- Forks
- 741
- Avg merge
- 6h 46m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 9
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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