openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: Regression of #70193 in 2026.4.23 — bundled-deps installer places playwright-core where dist pw-ai loader can't resolve it, Chromium binary also not fetched [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

act:*, navigate, and snapshot all fail with "Playwright is not available in this gateway build" on a freshly upgraded 2026.4.23 install. This is a regression of #70193 (closed 2026-04-22 by commit 9c733956c0 with the claim that bundled deps are now repaired on plugin activation).

The bundled-deps activation does install playwright-core on first run — I can see it in the startup log — but it installs it into a location the gateway's dist-level pw-ai loader can't resolve, and the pinned Chromium binary is never downloaded. Net effect: user-facing browser tool is dead until manually repaired.

Environment

• OpenClaw 2026.4.23 (a979721)
• macOS 25.2.0 (Apple Silicon), Node 22 via Homebrew
• Installed via npm i -g openclaw@latest
• Agent: openclaw:manny on openai/gpt-5.4 (model is immaterial, same failure with any provider)

Repro

1. Fresh npm i -g openclaw@latest on a machine with no prior ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/chromium-1217
2. Start the gateway; observe the startup line:

   [plugins] browser installed bundled runtime deps: @modelcontextprotocol/[email protected], commander@^14.0.3, express@^5.2.1, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], ws@^8.20.0

3. Start a browser session and try to navigate:

   $ openclaw browser start          # succeeds, Chrome launches via CDP
   $ openclaw browser tabs            # succeeds
   $ openclaw browser navigate https://example.com
   GatewayClientRequestError: Playwright is not available in this gateway build; 'navigate' is unsupported.
   Repair the bundled browser plugin runtime dependencies so playwright-core is installed, then restart the gateway.
   Docs: /tools/browser#playwright-requirement

Root cause (two stacked bugs)

Bug A — ESM resolution hole for the dist-level pw-ai loader

The bundled runtime-deps installer places playwright-core at:

/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/extensions/browser/node_modules/playwright-core

But the gateway's pw-ai module lives at dist/pw-ai-*.js and imports the dep with a bare specifier:

// dist/pw-ai-Cn4h1-cX.js
import { chromium, devices } from ""playwright-core"";

Node's ESM resolver walks up from the importer's directory. From /.../openclaw/dist/, it checks:

• /.../openclaw/dist/node_modules/playwright-core (missing)
• /.../openclaw/node_modules/playwright-core (missing)
• /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/playwright-core (missing)

…and never looks inside dist/extensions/browser/node_modules/. So the dynamic await import(""./pw-ai-Cn4h1-cX.js"") in loadPwAiModule() throws ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND: Cannot find package 'playwright-core'. In mode: ""soft"" the loader silently returns null, and requirePwAi() emits the misleading ""not available in this gateway build"" 501 for every nav/snapshot/act call.

Direct evidence from the installed build:

$ node --input-type=module -e ""await import('file:///opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/pw-ai-Cn4h1-cX.js')""
LOAD ERROR: ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND
Cannot find package 'playwright-core' imported from /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/pw-ai-Cn4h1-cX.js

Fix suggestions for A

Any one of these would close the hole:

1. Hoist playwright-core install target to openclaw/node_modules/playwright-core (reachable from /dist/).
2. Have the bundled-runtime-deps installer also symlink the plugin-dir install into openclaw/node_modules/ so the dist-level loader resolves it.
3. Change dist/pw-ai-*.js to import via a relative path inside the plugin (or via createRequire(pluginRoot)), so it doesn't depend on Node's upward node_modules walk from /dist/.

Bug B — Pinned Chromium binary not downloaded

Even after (A) is fixed, the first real navigation still fails because [email protected] pins Chromium revision 1217, but:

$ ls ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/
chromium-1208   chromium_headless_shell-1208   ffmpeg-1011

i.e. any previously-downloaded Chromium is stale (from an earlier Playwright version), and the bundled-deps installer only pulls the Node package. Until playwright install chromium is run, pw.chromium.launch() throws because the executable path (.../ms-playwright/chromium-1217/chrome-mac-arm64/Google Chrome for Testing.app/...) doesn't exist.

Fix suggestion for B

After the bundled-deps installer activates playwright-core, have it read playwright-core/browsers.json to find the pinned chromium/chromium-headless-shell revisions and invoke playwright-core/cli.js install chromium chromium-headless-shell if the matching binaries aren't already on disk.

Why the 2026.4.22 smoke test passes even though both bugs ship

test/release-check.test.ts (added in 9c733956c0) asserts the dep is present after plugin activation. That's necessary but not sufficient: it doesn't exercise the gateway's actual loader path from dist/pw-ai-*.js, and it doesn't check that the pinned Chromium binary is reachable at chromium.executablePath(). A more robust assertion would be:

const pwAiMod = await import('file://<install>/dist/pw-ai-<hash>.js');
// ^ must succeed; this exercises the real gateway resolution path.
const exe = require('<install>/dist/extensions/browser/node_modules/playwright-core').chromium.executablePath();
assert(fs.existsSync(exe)); // ^ must pass; this catches missing Chromium binary.

Workaround

Until the underlying bugs are fixed, a two-line repair restores full browser functionality (no need to reinstall OpenClaw):

# 1. Hoist playwright-core so the dist-level pw-ai loader can resolve it.
ln -sfn /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/extensions/browser/node_modules/playwright-core \
        /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/node_modules/playwright-core

# 2. Pull the pinned Chromium binary.
cd /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/extensions/browser && \
  node ./node_modules/playwright-core/cli.js install chromium chromium-headless-shell

# 3. Restart the gateway.
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/ai.openclaw.gateway

After this: openclaw browser navigate, browser snapshot --format ai, and act:* all work again end-to-end.

Related

• #70193 — original bug, claimed fixed in 9c733956c0 (this report is a regression)
• #50717 — likely adjacent (remote-relay path reports the same ""Playwright is not available"" text)
• #71484 — separate but related bundled-deps installer packaging issue filed today

Happy to PR either the smoke-test hardening or the hoist/symlink logic in src/plugins/bundled-runtime-root.ts — let me know which direction you prefer.