GoogleChromeLabs / GoogleChromeLabs/chrome-for-testing

Chrome on Ubuntu Fails to Respect --crash-dumps-dir and --disable-crash-reporter Flags

Open
#114 5 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
1.3k
Forks
159
Avg merge
18h 37m
Merged PRs (30d)
3

Description

### Description:
We are experiencing an issue with Google Chrome on an Ubuntu system, where Chrome attempts to write or create directories under /var/lib/${USER_NAME}, leading to an EACCES (Permission Denied) error. This behavior occurs despite running Chrome under a specific user account with restricted permissions.

### Steps to Reproduce:

1. Log in or switch to a non-root user account on an Ubuntu system.
2. Launch Google Chrome from the terminal using the user account, including either the --crash-dumps-dir flag to specify a custom directory for crash reports or the --disable-crash-reporter flag to disable the crash reporter feature.
3. Observe that Chrome attempts to write or create directories under /var/lib/${USER_NAME}, resulting in an EACCES error and browser crashing

### Expected Behavior:

**Chrome should either:**
a. Skip using the crash reporter entirely and log a message indicating that the crash reporter is not in use, or
b. Respect the --crash-dumps-dir flag to use the specified directory for crash reports, or
c. Respect the --disable-crash-reporter flag to disable the crash reporter without attempting to write to unauthorized directories.

**Actual Behavior:**
Chrome attempts to access /var/lib/${USER_NAME}, resulting in permission denied errors, even when the --crash-dumps-dir or --disable-crash-reporter flags are used and crashes

**Environment:**
Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04
Chrome Version: 122.0.6261.57
Browser: Chrome
*Note* I used the @puppeteer/browsers module to install chrome browser

**Additional Information:**
This issue poses a challenge for running automated tests under restricted user accounts, where directory access permissions are limited.
No relevant policy changes or configurations outside of the default install were applied that might influence Chrome's behavior in this context.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No repository file or test is named. Start by reproducing the launch on Ubuntu 20.04 as a restricted user with --crash-dumps-dir and --disable-crash-reporter, then inspect how the @puppeteer/browsers Chrome installation is invoked and capture the /var/lib/${USER_NAME} access failure. Done means the relevant flag is respected without unauthorized directory access or a crash.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
testing-qa, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.