Orphaned --browser chrome processes block normal Chrome on macOS

[neonwatty]

Problem

When a daemon using --browser chrome (channel: "chrome") dies ungracefully, the Chrome process it spawned becomes orphaned (PPID=1). On macOS this blocks the user from opening Chrome normally — Launch Services routes clicks to the orphaned headless instance.

kill-all doesn't help: it only matches daemon process patterns (cliDaemon.js, etc.), not the browser processes they spawned.

This was reported in #312 (confirmed orphans survive kill -9) and #360 (process accumulation). Both closed without a fix in the CLI.

What happened

A persistent --browser chrome session in ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/daemon/ left an orphaned Chrome process after the daemon exited. The session config:

{
  "browserName": "chromium",
  "launchOptions": {
    "headless": false,
    "channel": "chrome"
  },
  "userDataDir": "...ud-supabase-setup-chrome"
}

The orphaned Chrome (PPID=1) held the Launch Services registration, so open -a "Google Chrome" did nothing visible. Manually killing it restored normal Chrome.

Suggestion

kill-all should also find and kill orphaned browser processes — e.g., by storing the browser PID in the .session file, or by matching Google Chrome.*remote-debugging-port patterns alongside daemon patterns.

Environment

• @playwright/cli 0.1.8, playwright-core 1.60.0-alpha
• macOS 15.5 (Darwin 25.4.0)

[yury-s]

Can you try to run this script, follow printed instructions and see if the issue reproduces?

repro-cli-388.mjs

// Reproduces microsoft/playwright-cli#388 by toggling between launch() and
// launchPersistentContext() — the only difference that matters in our bisect.
//
// Usage:
//   node repro-cli-388-daemonlike.mjs [channel] [iso|persistent]
//     channel:    chrome, chrome-canary, msedge, chromium  (default: chrome)
//     mode:       iso (chromium.launch + newContext)
//                 persistent (chromium.launchPersistentContext)  -- default
//
// Then in another terminal:
//   ps -o pid,ppid,command -p <browser-pid>
//   kill -9 <node-pid>
//   ps -o pid,ppid,command -p <browser-pid>      # ppid=1 means orphaned

import { chromium } from 'playwright';
import os from 'os';
import path from 'path';
import fs from 'fs';

const channel = process.argv[2] || 'chrome';
const mode = process.argv[3] || 'persistent';
const userDataDir = fs.mkdtempSync(path.join(os.tmpdir(), 'pw-repro-388-'));

console.log(`node pid:      ${process.pid}`);
console.log(`channel:       ${channel}`);
console.log(`user data dir: ${userDataDir}`);

const browser = await chromium.launch({ channel, headless: false });
const context = await browser.newContext();
const page = await context.newPage();

await page.goto('https://playwright.dev');

const browserPid = browser?._connection?.toImpl?.(browser)?.options?.browserProcess?.process?.pid;

console.log(`browser pid:   ${browserPid ?? '<unknown>'}`);
console.log('');
console.log('Try in another terminal:');
console.log(`  ps -o pid,ppid,command -p ${browserPid}`);
console.log(`  kill -9 ${process.pid}`);
console.log(`  ps -o pid,ppid,command -p ${browserPid}    # ppid=1 means orphaned`);
console.log('');
console.log('Ctrl+C to exit gracefully.');