Chrome extension not detected by Puppeteer: service_worker missing in browser.targets

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

I’m having trouble loading a Chrome extension with Puppeteer on Ubuntu. The extension works fine locally, but on Linux, I can’t find the service_worker.

Here’s what I’m doing:

const browserSetup = async () => {
  const extDir = path.join(__dirname, 'extension_folder')
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: 'new',
    devtools: true,
    env: { LD_LIBRARY_PATH: '/lib/shared' },
    args: [
      `--disable-extensions-except=${extDir}`,
      `--load-extension=${extDir}`,
      '--no-sandbox',
      '--disable-setuid-sandbox'
    ]
  })
  return browser
}

const checkServiceWorker = async (browser) => {
  try {
    await browser.waitForTarget(
      t => t.type() === 'service_worker' && t.url().includes('background.js'),
      { timeout: 15000 }
    )
    const targets = await browser.targets()
    return targets.find(t => t.type() === 'service_worker')
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Service worker not found')
    return null
  }
}

The browser launches fine, but the service_worker is never found. I’ve checked the extension files are present. Any ideas why this might be happening on Linux but not locally?

2

I’ve dealt with this exact problem before. What finally worked for me was adding the ‘–enable-logging’ flag to the launch arguments. This helped pinpoint the issue in the Chrome logs.

Also, make sure your extension’s manifest.json is using manifest_version 3. V2 extensions are being phased out and might cause issues.

Another thing to check is file permissions on Linux. Sometimes the extension files aren’t readable by the process running Puppeteer. Try running ‘chmod -R 755’ on your extension directory.

If all else fails, you could try using a pre-built Chromium binary specifically for your Linux distro. Puppeteer’s default Chromium can sometimes have quirks on certain systems.

Hope this helps. Debugging extension issues can be a real pain, especially cross-platform.

3

hey mate, had similar issue. try adding ‘–disable-gpu’ to ur launch args. also, double-check ur extension manifest.json. make sure background script is defined correctly. if that dont work, maybe try launching in non-headless mode to see whats goin on. good luck!

4

I encountered a similar issue when deploying to Linux. One thing that helped was explicitly setting the user data directory. Try adding this to your launch options:

userDataDir: '/path/to/user/data/directory'

Also, ensure your extension’s permissions in manifest.json include ‘background’. Sometimes Linux environments have stricter security policies that can interfere with extension loading.

If those don’t work, you might want to check your Chrome/Chromium version on the Linux machine. Older versions can sometimes have issues with service workers in extensions. Updating to the latest stable release could potentially resolve the problem.

Lastly, consider using the --no-sandbox flag cautiously. It can introduce security risks in production environments.