Puppeteer script crashes due to destroyed execution context during navigation

Other Questions Puppeteer
1

Hey folks, I’m having trouble with my Puppeteer script. It’s supposed to scrape info from multiple company pages, but it keeps crashing after the first one. Here’s what’s happening:

I’ve got a directory page with 15 companies per page. My script is meant to:

  1. Go through each company on the page
  2. Click on their link
  3. Grab some info from their page
  4. Go back to the directory
  5. Move to the next company

But I keep getting this error:

Error: the execution context was destroyed, probably because of a navigation.

It only manages to get data from the first company before breaking. I’m using a for loop and page.goBack() to return to the directory. Am I doing something wrong with the navigation?

Here’s a simplified version of what I’m trying:

for (const company of companies) {
  await page.goto(company.link);
  const info = await page.$eval('#info', e => e.innerText);
  data.push({ name: company.name, info });
  await page.goBack();
}

Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks in advance!

2

I’ve dealt with similar Puppeteer headaches before. One trick that’s worked wonders for me is implementing a retry mechanism. Sometimes the execution context gets destroyed due to network hiccups or page load issues. Here’s a snippet that might help:

const MAX_RETRIES = 3;
const RETRY_DELAY = 2000; // 2 seconds

async function scrapeWithRetry(page, company, retries = 0) {
  try {
    await page.goto(company.link, { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });
    const info = await page.$eval('#info', e => e.innerText);
    return { name: company.name, info };
  } catch (error) {
    if (retries < MAX_RETRIES) {
      console.log(`Retrying ${company.name} (attempt ${retries + 1})`);
      await page.waitForTimeout(RETRY_DELAY);
      return scrapeWithRetry(page, company, retries + 1);
    }
    throw error;
  }
}

for (const company of companies) {
  const result = await scrapeWithRetry(page, company);
  data.push(result);
  await page.goto(directoryUrl, { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });
}

This approach has saved me countless hours of debugging. It’s more resilient to temporary failures and might just solve your issue. Let me know if it helps!

3

I encountered a similar issue in one of my projects. The problem likely stems from the asynchronous nature of page navigation. Instead of relying on page.goBack(), consider opening each company page in a new tab. This approach maintains the original directory page intact.

Here’s a modified version of your script that might work better:

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto(directoryUrl);

for (const company of companies) {
  const newPage = await browser.newPage();
  await newPage.goto(company.link);
  const info = await newPage.$eval('#info', e => e.innerText);
  data.push({ name: company.name, info });
  await newPage.close();
}

await browser.close();

This method should prevent the execution context issues you’re experiencing. It’s more robust and less prone to navigation-related errors.

4

hey emmad, i’ve run into this before. instead of using page.goBack(), try storing the directory URL and using page.goto(directoryURL) after each company. like this:\n\nconst directoryURL = ‘https://example.com/directory’;\nfor (const company of companies) {\n await page.goto(company.link);\n // scrape stuff\n await page.goto(directoryURL);\n}\n\nthis should avoid the execution context issue. good luck!