unclecode / unclecode/crawl4ai

[Bug]: Docker pool's permanent browser never serves any request - signature is computed without the egress proxy, so no `/crawl` can ever match it

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⚙️ In-progress 🐞 Bug
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Summary

Found while investigating #2202. The Docker server's "permanent" warm browser is dead weight: it is started at boot, serves zero requests, is never cleaned up, and causes every container to run a second browser tree from the first request onward.

Root cause

The pool matches requests to browsers by hashing the full BrowserConfig (crawler_pool.py:46-49), and proxy_config is part of to_dict() (async_configs.py:968).

  • init_permanent() is called at startup with a config built straight from config.ymlwithout enforce_egress() (server.py:199-203), so its fingerprint has proxy_config: None.
  • Every /crawl request's config goes through enforce_egress() first (api.py:687-690), which sets proxy_config to the egress pinning proxy — whose port is random each boot (egress_broker.py:198-201).

The two fingerprints can never be equal, so _is_default_config() (crawler_pool.py:60) never matches and PERMANENT is never returned. Note get_default_browser_config() (server.py:126-141) does apply enforce_egress, so even the server's own /html, /screenshot, /pdf, /execute_js endpoints miss it.

Additionally, the janitor only sweeps HOT_POOL and COLD_POOL (crawler_pool.py:177,198) — PERMANENT is never inspected, so the unused browser also can never be reclaimed.

Impact

  • ~270 MB RSS + one Playwright driver + full Chromium tree per container, doing nothing, forever.
  • Every container shows two driver → browser process branches after the first request (observed in #2202's process listing: one branch from boot, one from the first crawl a day later).
  • The text_mode optimization configured for the default browser never applies to real traffic.

Verified

Reproduced on unclecode/crawl4ai:0.9.2: fresh container = one browser tree; after a single plain /crawl = two independent trees, permanent one idle.

Proposed fix

Keep the permanent browser, fix the match: build its config through the same path requests use (get_default_browser_config(), i.e. after enforce_egress), and compute DEFAULT_CONFIG_SIG from that. Alternatively/additionally, exclude the server-injected proxy_config from the pool signature, since the server sets it identically on every request.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with crawler_pool.py:46-49, 60, 177, and 198, then trace the permanent-browser setup in server.py:126-141 and 199-203 and request handling in api.py:687-690. Verify that the permanent browser uses a matching request signature, serves the default traffic, and is included in janitor cleanup without creating a second browser tree.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend, performance
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
74/100

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