[Bug]: Host system is missing dependencies to run browsers on latest Debian stable 13

[julienw]

Version

1.57.0

Steps to reproduce

run npx playwright install --with-deps on latest uptodate Debian stable

Expected behavior

I expect that everything works, especially that Debian 13 (latest stable) is mentioned as supported in https://playwright.dev/docs/intro#system-requirements

Actual behavior

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Host system is missing dependencies to run browsers. ║
║ Missing libraries:                                   ║
║     libicudata.so.72                                 ║
║     libicui18n.so.72                                 ║
║     libicuuc.so.72                                   ║
║     libvpx.so.7                                      ║
║     libavif.so.15                                    ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Indeed libicudata, libicui18n and libicuuc are .76, libvpx is .9, and libavif is .16 on my system.

Additional context

I can still run tests using my previously installed browsers (installed when Debian 12 was installed, before my update).

Environment

System:
    OS: Linux 6.12 Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 13 (trixie)
    CPU: (16) x64 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900H @ 2.50GHz
    Memory: 41.27 GB / 62.53 GB
    Container: Yes
  Binaries:
    Node: 24.12.0 - /home/julien/.nvm/versions/node/v24.12.0/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.22 - /usr/bin/yarn
    npm: 11.6.2 - /home/julien/.nvm/versions/node/v24.12.0/bin/npm
    pnpm: 10.9.0 - /home/julien/.local/share/pnpm/pnpm
    bun: 1.0.29 - /home/julien/.bun/bin/bun
    Deno: 2.0.0 - /home/julien/.cargo/bin/deno
  IDEs:
    VSCode: 1.107.1 - /usr/bin/code
  Languages:
    Bash: 5.2.37 - /usr/bin/bash
  npmPackages:
    @playwright/test: ^1.57.0 => 1.57.0 
    playwright: ^1.57.0 => 1.57.0

[dgozman]

@julienw We run our tests in a debian:13 container in all browsers, and everything works as expected after npx playwright install --with-deps.

The image we pull seems to be this one with
Digest: sha256:c71b05eac0b20adb4cdcc9f7b052227efd7da381ad10bb92f972e8eae7c6cdc9.

• Could you please provide exact steps to repro this, preferably in the docker? The steps you've provided do not even specify which browser you are using.
• Perhaps run npx playwright uninstall --all && npx playwright install --with-deps? If you have upgraded the system, but older browser binaries were downloaded before that, these binaries might not run. Note: you can use npx playwright install --list before that, to see where existing browser are, and make a copy if you are worried about losing them.

[julienw]

Thanks for your message,
Yes, I confirm that this works fine in the debian 13 docker image.

Using your commands I could trace the issue to the webkit MiniBrowser binary. The version I have installed uses these libraries. The version installed from scratch in the image doesn't use these ones but the newer ones. This explains why Firefox and Chrome were working fine.

Also I tested that uninstalling and installing again as you suggested works fine on my system.

I tried reproducing locally my problem so that maybe something could be improved.

Here are the commands (not to be copy pasted, they need to be entered one by one, as some of them trigger some input prompt), starting from a debian 12 then updating it to debian 13:

docker run -it debian:12 bash

apt update
apt install sudo curl less adduser neovim
adduser julien
adduser julien sudo
su - julien

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash
. .bashrc
nvm install 24
npx playwright install --with-deps
exit

sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
apt update
apt full-upgrade
apt purge '?obsolete'
apt autoremove

su - julien

At this point, ldd /home/julien/.cache/ms-playwright/webkit-2227/minibrowser-gtk/bin/MiniBrowser shows that some shared libraries are not found. (apt purge '?obsolete' removed them indeed.)

Still npx playwright install --with-deps doesn't show the error I was mentioning before.
But running npx playwright wk http://google.fr breaks because of that missing shared library as I expected. So I believe that the warning should be displayed here, but it isn't? Would you know why?

Also I was expecting that --force would reinstall all the browsers, but it does nothing.

Hope this helps!

[dgozman]

Still npx playwright install --with-deps doesn't show the error I was mentioning before. So I believe that the warning should be displayed here, but it isn't? Would you know why?

Playwright validates dependencies only once per binary every 30 days, to avoid unnecessary overhead. Since it has been done on Debian 12 already, the check is skipped when your run install again. However, when you actually try to launch the browser, it fails to run.

Also I was expecting that --force would reinstall all the browsers, but it does nothing.

Good point, let me see whether we can change this.

[julienw]

Still npx playwright install --with-deps doesn't show the error I was mentioning before. So I believe that the warning should be displayed here, but it isn't? Would you know why?

Playwright validates dependencies only once per binary every 30 days, to avoid unnecessary overhead. Since it has been done on Debian 12 already, the check is skipped when your run install again. However, when you actually try to launch the browser, it fails to run.

Ah I see, makes sense.

I wonder if you could detect that the wrong binary for the system is installed, and suggest to uninstall and install again (or --force if you change that).

[dgozman]

I wonder if you could detect that the wrong binary for the system is installed

This seems somewhat involved, while the scenario where it helps is pretty exotic. Given that, I will close the issue for now, and we can reconsider if we get more reports like this.

Thank you for the issue!