[Bug]: Installation fails if binary distributions are prohibited #43599

Activity

1. AyushDubey23 commented on Oct 23, 2026

   

   Ayush Dubey (AyushDubey23)

   on Oct 23, 2026

   More actions

   This behavior is expected under the current packaging design.

   Playwright for Python publishes only pre-built platform wheels (8 wheels per release) because each wheel bundles the required Node.js driver binary. It does not publish a source distribution (sdist) or a pure Python wheel (py3-none-any.whl).

   When installer.no-binary is set to :all: in Poetry or --no-binary :all: in pip, the package manager rejects all binary wheels and looks for an sdist. Because no sdist exists on PyPI, installation fails.

   Supporting this workflow would require playwright-python to publish an additional source distribution or a platform-independent wheel that detects and uses a system-installed Node.js runtime. As noted in microsoft/playwright-python#3036, this is currently a feature request rather than a bug.

   Workarounds:

   1. Exempt playwright from the no-binary policy in your package manager configuration.
   2. On Arch Linux, install the distribution package via pacman -S python-playwright (which uses system Node.js).
2. dcrousso commented on Oct 23, 2026

   

   Devin Rousso (dcrousso)

   on Oct 23, 2026

   Contributor

   More actions

   Hi, the Playwright bot looked into this on my behalf by checking the published package metadata and source.

   This is a Python packaging feature request. Both 1.58.0 and 1.64.1 publish eight platform wheels and no source distribution, so Poetry correctly rejects every available artifact under installer.no-binary=:all:.

   Using system Node.js is already supported through PLAYWRIGHT_NODEJS_PATH, including in 1.58.0: https://playwright.dev/python/docs/browsers#using-a-pre-installed-nodejs. This selects the runtime but does not remove the executable bundled in the installed wheel.

   Your request therefore has two parts: avoiding bundled Node.js and supporting source-only installation. A platform-independent wheel would address the first, but Poetry would still reject it under this policy. Supporting both requires a source distribution whose build retains the matching JavaScript driver without bundling Node.js.

   This is the packaging decision raised in the earlier response: microsoft/playwright-python#3036 (comment). This issue is the appropriate place to collect feedback.

   Only source and metadata were inspected. No installation or runtime reproduction was performed.

   _{Investigated locally by the Playwright bot}
3. github-actions commented on Oct 28, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Oct 28, 2026 – with GitHub Actions · Hidden as outdated

   show commentMore actions
4. github-actions commented on Oct 28, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Oct 28, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

   Contributor

   More actions

   Hi, I'm the Playwright bot. I reviewed microsoft/playwright-python#3295 and its CI results.

   The approach addresses the missing source distribution, but the current PR has two confirmed CI failures and an installation-test gap. I did not find evidence that it changes normal installation on a supported platform when a matching wheel of the same version is available. The broader change is that a source install can now succeed without providing a working runtime.

   Problems in the current PR

   • Existing wheel jobs now fail. They build only a wheel, then run all of tests/test_installation.py. The new test_install_sdist assumes a .tar.gz exists and raises IndexError. This is visible in the Linux Chromium job. The wheel and source tests need separate selection, or both artifacts must be prepared.
   • The new source-distribution job never reaches its test. build --sdist creates the driver ZIP but does not extract it into the editable checkout. The following python -m playwright install-deps chromium therefore fails with Cannot find module .../playwright/driver/package/cli.js, even with PLAYWRIGHT_NODEJS_PATH set. See the source-distribution job.
   • The successful CLI check can use the checkout instead of the installed package. _run_client() runs the virtual environment's python -m playwright without changing the working directory. From the repository root, Python imports the checkout first. The earlier error checks correctly use cwd=tmp_path; the successful CLI invocation needs the same isolation. The separate client script does use the installed package, so this is specifically a CLI coverage gap.

   Compatibility and maintenance concerns

   Publishing an sdist is not limited to users who explicitly request source-only installation. If there is no compatible wheel, an ordinary installer can now select it automatically. Also, a newer sdist can beat an older compatible wheel. Such an install will require PLAYWRIGHT_NODEJS_PATH even when node is already on PATH; the PR intentionally does not discover it automatically.

   Likewise, pip wheel or an internal package mirror can distribute the resulting py3-none-any wheel to supported machines without bundled Node.js. This is not a problem with the wheel tag itself, but it means artifacts with the same package name and version have different runtime requirements. User-facing documentation should describe this difference, including that the environment variable must reach both CLI and API processes. The PR currently updates contributor instructions, not installation documentation.

   Removing Node.js does not extend browser support to every platform accepted by the Python package. For example, the existing Firefox/WebKit restriction on musl-based Linux remains. The external Node.js runtime also has its own update requirements outside the Python dependency lock. The pinned driver requires Node.js 20 or newer and already checks that minimum; a second version check is not needed here.

   Finally, the new test installs a local tarball with normal pip settings. It does not exercise Poetry's reported installer.no-binary=:all: workflow or source-only installation of the build dependencies. Those paths remain unverified.

   Evidence and limits

   Reviewed head: 7bcf5199266e97cdab88064f4c6d1ddf90d748d9. On Linux with Python 3.12 and pip 24.0, an independent pip candidate-selection probe confirmed that the same-version platform wheel wins over both the sdist and a universal wheel, but a newer sdist wins over an older platform wheel. A separate clean-venv probe confirmed the checkout-import problem.

   pip download --no-deps --no-cache-dir --no-binary=:all: --index-url https://pypi.org/simple playwright==1.58.0 reproduced the missing-source-candidate failure. I read the complete PR diff and the relevant build/runtime code and inspected the published CI logs; I did not build or execute the PR locally, run Poetry, or run browsers.

   _{Triaged on Linux by the Playwright bot - agent run}
5. github-actions commented on Oct 28, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Oct 28, 2026 – with GitHub Actions · Hidden as outdated

   show commentMore actions
6. github-actions commented on Oct 28, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Oct 28, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

   Contributor

   More actions

   Hi, I'm the Playwright bot. I checked the requested changes against the current Python PR.

   microsoft/playwright-python#3295 still needs the corrections from the earlier analysis. Its head is unchanged at 7bcf5199266e97cdab88064f4c6d1ddf90d748d9. I confirmed both CI failures directly in the Linux job logs: wheel jobs run the source test without a tarball, and the source job invokes the checkout CLI before extracting its JavaScript driver.

   This triage workflow can publish fixes only to microsoft/playwright, not update a Python PR or publish CI changes. I saved the concrete changes in the run summary; the PR itself was not changed.

   Required corrections and verification limits

   • Select tests/test_installation.py::test_install in wheel jobs and ::test_install_sdist in the source job.
   • Prepare an extracted driver before the source job runs install-deps. Building the sdist first and then a platform wheel is one option; the test must still install the tarball into its separate clean environment.
   • Set cwd=tmp_path for both subprocesses in _run_client(), so the successful CLI check cannot import the checkout.
   • Exercise source-only installation, including build dependencies, and verify Poetry's reported policy. Document external Node.js requirements for both CLI and API processes, automatic source fallback, and unchanged browser platform support.

   I read the full PR diff and current checks and inspected the wheel job log and source job log. This was a source and CI-log investigation on Linux, not a local installation or browser reproduction. The PR contains build and CI changes, which this workflow's third-party-code rules do not permit executing.

   _{Triaged on Linux by the Playwright bot - agent run}
7. Dmitry Gozman (dgozman)

   closed this as completedin playwright-python#3295on Oct 29, 2026