Develop Reference

Puppeteer "Failed to launch the browser process!" when launching multiple browsers [duplicate]

So what I am trying to do is to open puppeteer window with my google profile, but what I want is to do it multiple times, what I mean is 2-4 windows but with the same profile - is that possible? I am getting this error when I do it:
(node:17460) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Failed to launch the browser process!
[45844:13176:0410/181437.893:ERROR:cache_util_win.cc(20)] Unable to move the cache: Access is denied. (0x5)
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless:false,
'--user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\USER\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data',
);
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.screenshot({ path: 'example.png' });
await browser.close();
})();

Note: It is already pointed in the comments but there is a syntax error in the example. The launch should look like this:
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
args: ['--user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\USER\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data']
});
The error is coming from the fact that you are launching multiple browser instances at the very same time hence the profile directory will be locked and cannot be moved to reuse by puppeteer.
You should avoid starting chromium instances with the very same user data dir at the same time.
Possible solutions
Make the opened windows sequential, can be useful if you have only a few. E.g.:
const firstFn = async () => await puppeteer.launch() ...
const secondFn = async () => await puppeteer.launch() ...
(async () => {
await firstFn()
await secondFn()
})();
Creating copies of the user-data-dir as User Data1, User Data2 User Data3 etc. to avoid conflict while puppeteer copies them. This could be done on the fly with Node's fs module or even manually (if you don't need a lot of instances).
Consider reusing Chromium instances (if your use case allows it), with browser.wsEndpoint and puppeteer.connect, this can be a solution if you would need to open thousands of pages with the same user data dir.
Note: this one is the best for performance as only one browser will be launched, then you can open as many pages in a for..of or regular for loop as you want (using forEach by itself can cause side effects), E.g.:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer')
const urlArray = ['https://example.com', 'https://google.com']
async function fn() {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
args: ['--user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\USER\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data']
})
const browserWSEndpoint = await browser.wsEndpoint()
for (const url of urlArray) {
try {
const browser2 = await puppeteer.connect({ browserWSEndpoint })
const page = await browser2.newPage()
await page.goto(url) // it can be wrapped in a retry function to handle flakyness
// doing cool things with the DOM
await page.screenshot({ path: `${url.replace('https://', '')}.png` })
await page.goto('about:blank') // because of you: https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/issues/1490
await page.close()
await browser2.disconnect()
} catch (e) {
console.error(e)
}
}
await browser.close()
}
fn()

Clicking a selector with Puppeteer

So I am having trouble clicking a login button on the nike website..
I am not sure why It keeps crashing, well because it can't find the selector I guess but I am not sure what I am doing wrong.
I would like to also say I am having some sort of memory leak before puppeteer crashes and sometimes it will even crash my macbook completely if I don't cancel the process in time inside the console.
EDIT:
This code also causes a memory leak whenever it crashes forcing me to have to hard reset my mac if I don't cancel the application fast enough.
Node Version: 14.4.0
Puppeteer Version: 5.2.1
Current code:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
defaultViewport: null,
args: ['--start-maximized']
})
const page = await browser.newPage()
await page.goto('https://www.nike.com/')
const winner = await Promise.race([
page.waitForSelector('[data-path="join or login"]'),
page.waitForSelector('[data-path="sign in"]')
])
await page.click(winner._remoteObject.description)
})()
I have also tried:
await page.click('button[data-var]="loginBtn"');

Try it:
await page.click('button[data-var="loginBtn"]');

They are A/B testing their website, so you may land on a page with very different selectors than you retreived while you visited the site from your own chrome browser.
In such cases you can try to grab the elements by their text content (unfortunately in this specific case that also changes over the designs) using XPath and its contains method. E.g. $x('//span[contains(text(), "Sign In")]')[0]
So I suggest to detect both button versions and get their most stable selectors, these can be based on data attributes as well:
A
$('[data-path="sign in"]')
B
$('[data-path="join or login"]')
Then with a Promise.race you can detect which button is present and then extract its selector from the JSHandle#node like this: ._remoteObject.description:
{
type: 'object',
subtype: 'node',
className: 'HTMLButtonElement',
description: 'button.nav-btn.p0-sm.body-3.u-bold.ml2-sm.mr2-sm',
objectId: '{"injectedScriptId":3,"id":1}'
}
=>
button.nav-btn.p0-sm.prl3-sm.pt2-sm.pb2-sm.fs12-nav-sm.d-sm-b.nav-color-grey.hover-color-black
Example:
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
defaultViewport: null,
args: ['--start-maximized']
})
const page = await browser.newPage()
await page.goto('https://www.nike.com/')
const winner = await Promise.race([
page.waitForSelector('[data-path="join or login"]'),
page.waitForSelector('[data-path="sign in"]')
])
await page.click(winner._remoteObject.description)
FYI: Maximize the browser window as well to make sure the elment has the same selector name.
defaultViewport: null, args: ['--start-maximized']
Chromium starts in a bit smaller window with puppeteer by default.

You need to use { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' } with page.goto
This tells puppeteer to wait for the network to be idle (no requests for 500ms)
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
defaultViewport: null,
args: ['--start-maximized']
})
const page = await browser.newPage()
// load the nike.com page and wait for it to fully load (inc A/B scripts)
await page.goto('https://www.nike.com/', { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' })
// select whichever element appears first
var el = await page.waitForSelector('[data-path="join or login"], [data-path="sign in"]', { timeout: 1000 })
// execute click
await page.click(el._remoteObject.description)
})()

puppeteer can't get page source after using evaluate()

I'm using puppeteer to interact with a website using the evaluate() function to maniupulate page front (i.e to click on certain items etc...), click through works fine but I can't return the page source after clicking using evaluate.
I have recreated the error in this simplified script below it loads google.com, clicks on 'I feel lucky' and should then return the page source of the loaded page:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
async function main() {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
args: ['--no-sandbox']
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://www.google.com/', {waitUntil: 'networkidle2'});
response = await page.evaluate(() => {
document.getElementsByClassName('RNmpXc')[1].click()
});
await page.waitForNavigation({waitUntil: 'load'});
console.log(response.text());
}
main();
I get the following error:
TypeError: Cannot read property 'text' of undefined
UPDATE New code following suggestion to use page.content()
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
async function main() {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
headless: false,
args: ['--no-sandbox']
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://www.google.com/', {waitUntil: 'networkidle2'});
await page.evaluate(() => {
document.getElementsByClassName('RNmpXc')[1].click()
});
const source = await page.content()
console.log(source);
}
main();
I am now getting the following error:
Error: Execution context was destroyed, most likely because of a navigation.
My question is: How can I return page source using the .text() method after manipulating the webpage using the evaluate() method?
All suggestions / insight / proposals would be very much appreciated thanks.

Since you're asking for page source after javascript modification, I'd assume you want DOM and not the original HTML content. your evaluate function doesn't return anything which results in undefined response. You can use
const source = await page.evaluate(() => new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(document.doctype) + document.documentElement.outerHTML);
or
const source = await page.content();

Puppeteer does not activate button click, despite selecting button

I'm trying to automate a sign in to a simple website that a scammer sent my friend. I can use puppeteer to fill in the text inputs but when I try to use it to click the button, all it does is activate the button color change (that happens when the mouse hovers over the button). I also tried clicking enter while focusing on the input fields, but that doesn't seem to work. When I use document.buttonNode.click() in the console, it worked, but I can't seem to emulate that with puppeteer
I also tried to use the waitFor function but it kept telling me 'cannot read property waitFor'
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
const chromeOptions = {
headless:false,
defaultViewport: null,
slowMo:10};
(async function main() {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch(chromeOptions);
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://cornelluniversityemailverifica.godaddysites.com/?fbclid=IwAR3ERzNkDRPOGL1ez2fXcmumIYcMyBjuI7EUdHIWhqdRDzzUAMwRGaI_o-0');
await page.type('#input1', 'hello#cornell.edu');
await page.type('#input2', 'password');
// await this.page.waitFor(2000);
// await page.type(String.fromCharCode(13));
await page.click('button[type=submit]');
})()

This site blocks unsecured events, you need to wait before the click.
Just add the await page.waitFor(1000); before click. Also, I would suggest adding the waitUntil:"networkidle2" argument to the goto function.
So here is the working script:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
const chromeOptions = {
headless: false,
defaultViewport: null,
slowMo:10
};
(async function main() {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch(chromeOptions);
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://cornelluniversityemailverifica.godaddysites.com/?fbclid=IwAR3ERzNkDRPOGL1ez2fXcmumIYcMyBjuI7EUdHIWhqdRDzzUAMwRGaI_o-0', { waitUntil: 'networkidle2' });
await page.type('#input1', 'hello#cornell.edu');
await page.type('#input2', 'password');
await page.waitFor(1000);
await page.click('button[type=submit]');
})()

Puppeteer Login to Instagram

I'm trying to login into Instagram with Puppeteer, but somehow I'm unable to do it.
Can you help me?
Here is the link I'm using:
https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/
I tried different stuff. The last code I tried was this:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async() => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/');
await page.evaluate();
await afterJS.type('#f29d14ae75303cc', 'username');
await afterJS.type('#f13459e80cdd114', 'password');
await page.pdf({path: 'page.pdf', format: 'A4'});
await browser.close();
})();
Thanks in advance!

OK you're on the right track but just need to change a few things.
Firstly, I have no idea where your afterJS variable comes from? Either way you won't need it.
You're asking for data to be typed into the username and password input fields but aren't asking puppeteer to actually click on the log in button to complete the log in process.
page.evaluate() is used to execute JavaScript code inside of the page context (ie. on the web page loaded in the remote browser). So you don't need to use it here.
I would refactor your code to look like the following:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/');
await page.waitForSelector('input[name="username"]');
await page.type('input[name="username"]', 'username');
await page.type('input[name="password"]', 'password');
await page.click('button[type="submit"]');
// Add a wait for some selector on the home page to load to ensure the next step works correctly
await page.pdf({path: 'page.pdf', format: 'A4'});
await browser.close();
})();
Hopefully this sets you down the right path to getting past the login page!
Update 1:
You've enquired about parsing the text of an element on Instagram... unfortunately I don't have an account on there myself so can't really give you an exact solution but hopefully this still proves of some value.
So you're trying to evaluate an elements text, right? You can do this as follows:
const text = await page.$eval(cssSelector, (element) => {
return element.textContent;
});
All you have to do is replace cssSelector with the selector of the element you wish to retrieve the text from.
Update 2:
OK lastly, you've enquired about scrolling down to an element within a parent element. I'm not going to steal the credit from someone else so here's the answer to that:
How to scroll to an element inside a div?
What you'll have to do is basically follow the instructions in there and get that to work with puppeteer similar to as follows:
await page.evaluate(() => {
const lastLink = document.querySelectorAll('h3 > a')[2];
const topPos = lastLink.offsetTop;
const parentDiv = document.querySelector('div[class*="eo2As"]');
parentDiv.scrollTop = topPos;
});
Bear in mind that I haven't tested that code - I've just directly followed the answer in the URL I've provided. It should work!

You can log in to Instagram using the following example code:
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
// Wait until page has loaded
await page.goto('https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/', {
waitUntil: 'networkidle0',
});
// Wait for log in form
await Promise.all([
page.waitForSelector('[name="username"]'),
page.waitForSelector('[name="password"]'),
page.waitForSelector('[name="submit"]'),
]);
// Enter username and password
await page.type('[name="username"]', 'username');
await page.type('[name="password"]', 'password');
// Submit log in credentials and wait for navigation
await Promise.all([
page.click('[type="submit"]'),
page.waitForNavigation({
waitUntil: 'networkidle0',
}),
]);
// Download PDF
await page.pdf({
path: 'page.pdf',
format: 'A4',
});
await browser.close();
})();