I’m working on end-to-end testing for my web application and need to test automatic audio playback functionality. Can I configure Puppeteer to allow audio autoplay features during testing?
I know the actual sound won’t play during headless testing, but I need the HTMLAudioElement to behave as if it’s playing automatically when the page loads. Currently it works fine when I simulate a click on the play button, but I need the same behavior to work with the autoplay attribute.
Has anyone successfully set up Puppeteer to handle this scenario? What browser flags or configuration options should I use?
try adding --allow-running-insecure-content and --disable-web-security flags too. these helped me when testing audio stuff in headless mode. also make sure your audio files are properly encoded - sometimes puppeteer is picky about formats even tho regular browsers handle them fine.
I faced a similar challenge while testing a web project. To enable automatic audio playback in Puppeteer, you should use the --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required flag during the Puppeteer launch. Additionally, incorporating --disable-features=VizDisplayCompositor can enhance media performance in headless mode. Make sure to include these flags in your puppeteer.launch() options. It’s also useful to implement the --mute-audio flag to avoid audio interruptions during tests. Just remember to wait for the ‘canplaythrough’ event before checking if autoplay works, as there may be a slight delay in headless testing.
The key configuration that worked for me was setting up the browser context with proper permissions alongside the launch flags. After launching Puppeteer with the autoplay policy flag mentioned above, you need to grant media permissions to your page using page.evaluateOnNewDocument() to override the navigator.permissions before the page loads. I also found it crucial to set the media feature using page.emulateMediaFeatures() with ‘prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference’ since some browsers block autoplay when motion reduction is preferred. Another important aspect is ensuring your test waits for the audio element’s readyState to be at least HAVE_ENOUGH_DATA before asserting the autoplay behavior, otherwise you might get false negatives in your tests.