Node.js crash (Uncaught Exception) during Take Screenshot on failure when execution context is destroyed

[ElionSylwin]

Description:
When a test fails and the library attempts to perform automatic failure actions (specifically Take Screenshot which involves element highlighting), the Node.js process crashes with an uncaught exception if the browser's execution context is destroyed (e.g., due to navigation or page close) at the exact same moment. This prevents the test suite from completing and fails the entire process instead of just the individual test case.

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Run a test that fails (e.g., a Wait For Element State timeout).
2. Ensure the application is in a state where it might navigate or close the page immediately after the failure.
3. The library triggers Take Screenshot as the on_failure keyword.
4. The library attempts to highlight the failed selector, throwing Uncaught Exception crashing node.js

Expected behavior:
The library should catch Playwright errors during the "on failure" screenshot/highlight phase. If the execution context is destroyed, it should fail the screenshot without crashing the Node.js server.

Actual behavior:
The Node.js wrapper throws an uncaught exception:
Error: locator.highlight: Execution context was destroyed, most likely because of a navigation
This triggers node:internal/process/promises:394 triggerUncaughtException(err, true) and the process exits.

Desktop:

• OS: Windows
• Browser Chromium
• Version 19.10.1

Additional context
Reason behind my belief that highlighting is the cause of this issue is that when highlighting is "disabled" using highlight_selector=${EMPTY}, this issue is no longer present, a screenshot upon failure is taken and test suite progress normally.

playwright log snippet:
{"level":30,"time":"2026-06-10T09:21:45.964Z","msg":"Start of node method takeScreenshot"}
node:internal/process/promises:394
triggerUncaughtException(err, true /* fromPromise */);
^

locator.highlight: Execution context was destroyed, most likely because of a navigation
at highlightAll (C:\snapshot\robotframework-browser\Browser\wrapper\index.js:7924:18)
at async highlightElements (C:\snapshot\robotframework-browser\Browser\wrapper\index.js:7900:17)
at async PlaywrightServer.highlightElements (C:\snapshot\robotframework-browser\Browser\wrapper\index.js:9702:26) {
name: 'Error'
}

[aaltat]

Could you try with the latest version of Browser library, v20.0.0?

[aaltat]

@allcontributors please add @ElionSylwin for bugs

[allcontributors]

@aaltat

I've put up a pull request to add @ElionSylwin! 🎉

[ElionSylwin]

I updated to the latest version of Browser library and I have been able to replicate this issue. This is only an assumption from what I have seen but it looks like if the process tries to take a screenshot and at that moment the page redirects, for example due to latency/slow internet, it throws the error.

Also I encountered the same issue, an Uncaught Exception that causes a node crash which fails the entire process as it did for the Take Screenshot, in a different place. It occured when the Click method is called and it cannot accept dialog which was already handled resulting in an node error. Snippet from the playwright log:

{"level":30,"time":"2026-06-11T09:06:25.817Z","pid":28364,"hostname":"DESKTOP-4O022EM","msg":"Start of node method click"}
{"level":30,"time":"2026-06-11T09:06:25.817Z","pid":28364,"hostname":"DESKTOP-4O022EM","msg":"Strict mode is enabled, find Locator with text="SurveyHub" in page."}
node:internal/process/promises:394
triggerUncaughtException(err, true /* fromPromise */);
^

dialog.accept: Cannot accept dialog which is already handled!
at Page.fn (C:\snapshot\robotframework-browser\Browser\wrapper\index.js:12414:35) {
name: 'Error'
}

[aaltat]

Hmmm, it is hard to say anything concrete. logs show that it something bad happens in Playwright side and it crashes. On the first one happen on locator.highlight and second one dialog.accept.

Notes from the second failure:

1. Are you sure that you did upgrade? Because the logging format has changed in playwright-log.txt file and that looks like the old format. new format looks like
   {"level":"info","time":"2026-06-11T19:43:55.734Z","seq":23,"suite_id":"s1-s1-s1","suite_name":"Test.04 Frames.Deep Frames","test_name":"Test.04 Frames.Deep Frames.First Level","test_id":"s1-s1-s1-t1","component":"browser-library","msg":"currentBrowser: {\"_contextStack\":[],\"browser... As you can see there are more details.
2. Upgrade instructions are explained in https://github.com/MarketSquare/robotframework-browser#update-instructions-with-nodejs (looks like you are using Browser with NodeJS)
3. The dialog.accept can happen, if test calls https://marketsquare.github.io/robotframework-browser/Browser.html#Wait%20For%20Alert many time is the same page. Then that error can happen.

I do not have any good suggestion for the first failure. I looked the code on master, which from this side is about the same as in 19.x series (in main points, not exactly the same)

1. Code seems to fail here: https://github.com/MarketSquare/robotframework-browser/blob/v19.15.1/node/playwright-wrapper/evaluation.ts#L513
2. Which is called from https://github.com/MarketSquare/robotframework-browser/blob/v19.15.1/node/playwright-wrapper/grpc-service.ts#L462
3. But we catch the exception: https://github.com/MarketSquare/robotframework-browser/blob/v19.15.1/node/playwright-wrapper/grpc-service.ts#L70-L81 But in your case, something fails so badly that it does not work.

[ElionSylwin]

You are correct, I missed a step during the upgrade and I still ran the old version, my apologies. I ran the tests again after properly upgrading to the v20.0.0. For the first issue with the Take Screenshot, it seems the version upgrade has fixed it as it did not appear again.

For the dialog issue, I can still replicate it and I noticed one thing. In one of my navigation keywords I use Handle Future Dialogs accept after which I wait for an element to be visible and then click on that element. For some reason it works just fine many times before but once I get to a certain point where it is called again during setup, it tries to click on an element after which it crashes with the following log error:
Stream removed (WSAGetOverlappedResult: Connection reset (An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
-- 10054))
File "C:\WOLFJAKUB\Testing.venv\Lib\site-packages\Browser\playwright.py", line 288, in grpc_channel
yield playwright_pb2_grpc.PlaywrightStub(self._channel)
File "C:\WOLFJAKUB\Testing.venv\Lib\site-packages\Browser\keywords\interaction.py", line 426, in click_with_options
response = stub.Click(
^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\WOLFJAKUBTesting\venv\Lib\site-packages\grpc_channel.py", line 1159, in call
return _end_unary_response_blocking(state, call, False, None)

File "C:\WOLFJAKUB\Testing\venv\Lib\site-packages\grpc_channel.py", line 990, in _end_unary_response_blocking
raise _InactiveRpcError(state) # pytype: disable=not-instantiable

grpc._channel._InactiveRpcError: <_InactiveRpcError of RPC that terminated with:
status = StatusCode.UNAVAILABLE
details = "Stream removed (WSAGetOverlappedResult: Connection reset (An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
-- 10054))"
debug_error_string = "UNAVAILABLE:Stream removed (WSAGetOverlappedResult: Connection reset (An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
-- 10054))"

With the playwright log error remainging the same:
node:internal/process/promises:394
triggerUncaughtException(err, true /* fromPromise */);
^
dialog.accept: Cannot accept dialog which is already handled!
at _Page.fn (C:\snapshot\robotframework-browser\Browser\wrapper\index.js:12288:35) {
name: 'Error'
}

When I tried removing the Handle Future Dialogs keyword, the issue seems to have disappeared so could there be, for example multiple handlers at that point, where one handles the dialogue after which another one tries and fails because it is already handled resulting in the crash? Though I am not very familiar with the inner workings of browser/playwright so it might not even be working like this. I hope the information above is useful.