How to handle Puppeteer 'Missing frame' error with isMainFrame=false?

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

I’m working with Puppeteer version 17.1.3 and keep running into this weird error that happens randomly. I can’t reproduce it consistently but I managed to simulate it by adding a throw statement in the same location where it occurs.

The error message looks like this:

Error: Missing frame isMainFrame=false, frameId=A1B2C3D4E5F6789012345ABCDEF67890
    at Connection.onMessage (/path/to/project/node_modules/puppeteer/lib/cjs/puppeteer/common/Connection.js:124:15)
    at WebSocket.<anonymous> (/path/to/project/node_modules/puppeteer/node_modules/ws/lib/websocket.js:45:32)

I’ve tried different ways to catch this error but nothing seems to work. Here’s what I attempted:

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async () => {
  try {
    const browserInstance = await puppeteer.launch().catch((error) => {
      console.log('Caught error 1:', error);
    });
  } catch (exception) {
    console.log('Caught error 2:' + exception);
  }
})().catch((error) => {
  console.log('Caught error 3:', error);
});

No matter how I structure my error handling, this particular error always crashes my script. What’s the proper way to catch and handle this type of Puppeteer frame error?

2

Had this exact problem a few months ago. Puppeteer’s frame tracking gets messed up when pages change quickly. I fixed it by catching the issue at browser level instead of page level - browser.on('disconnected') caught when things broke. Also try adding --disable-features=VizDisplayCompositor to your launch args. That reduced the frame timing issues for me.

3

This happens when Puppeteer tries to use a frame that’s already been destroyed or navigated away. Your try-catch blocks won’t catch it because the error occurs at the WebSocket level, outside your normal async/await flow.

I ran into this exact problem scraping sites with dynamic iframes. Here’s what fixed it for me:

process.on('uncaughtException', (error) => {
  if (error.message.includes('Missing frame')) {
    console.log('Frame error caught:', error.message);
    // Handle it gracefully - restart page or continue
    return;
  }
  throw error; // Re-throw other errors
});

Also helped to add small delays before frame operations and check if frames still exist before interacting with them. Cut down on these errors significantly.

4

This happens when Puppeteer gets messages about frames that are already destroyed or navigated away. The tricky part is these errors occur at the WebSocket level, below your app code.

I hit the same issue scraping dynamic sites with tons of iframes. Here’s what fixed it for me - add an unhandled rejection handler at the process level:

process.on('unhandledRejection', (reason, promise) => {
  if (reason && reason.message && reason.message.includes('Missing frame')) {
    console.log('Caught missing frame error:', reason.message);
    // Handle gracefully instead of crashing
    return;
  }
  // Re-throw other unhandled rejections
  throw reason;
});

Also try adding page.on('error') and page.on('pageerror') listeners - they’ll catch some related frame issues. Usually happens when navigation or iframe changes are too fast for Puppeteer’s internal tracking to keep up.