headless mode should be able to play audio

[demian85]

• Puppeteer version: 1.6.1
• Platform / OS version: MacOS High Sierra
• URLs (if applicable):
• Node.js version: 10.7

Let's face it, Puppeteer is not just for testing purposes. People come up with weird and useful ideas for automating stuff too.
In my case, I'm trying to build a Spotify CLI client, and Chrome is the only way to play a song, as it is encrypted media (is there another way?)

The problem is that when setting headless mode, I get the following screen. Otherwise, the song plays as expected.

Why features available in headless mode are not the same as in normal mode? Is the hard-coded option --mute-audio the problem here? I tried removing it manually but nothing happens, so it seems that Spotify is checking for something that is not available. Any ideas what could it be?

Thanks.

[ebidel]

Keep in mind that puppeteer uses Chromium, which does not necessarily play all types of media. See https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer#q-what-features-does-puppeteer-not-support. That may be at least one of your issues.

[demian85]

Sorry. I did not specify that I'm using Chrome instead of Chromium. Player works when not in headless mode!

[demian85]

I've just just tried puppeteer v1.7 with Chrome Canary and the problem is still there.
The only difference I can tell between headless and normal mode by logging default arguments is the option --mute-audio and --hide-scrollbars.
I tried excluding those options with no luck. Spotify still thinks my browser is not able to play audio!

[aslushnikov]

Spotify still thinks my browser is not able to play audio!

@demian85 any script I can play with that reproduces the issue?

[demian85]

Yes, you can try the actual spotify-cli module: https://github.com/demian85/spotify-cli
It does not work, but it takes a screenshot of the playlist view right before trying to play it.

[aslushnikov]

@demian85 ok I played with it; there are a few things that might happen:

1. Spotify seems to figure that I'm using automated browser (there are many ways to figure that out, see headless-cat-n-mouse) and makes it hard to log in. It took me a while (and maybe 5-7 solved captchas) to login on the headful browser
2. Once I logged in in headful, I was able to successfully play sound using your script. This is unsurprising though. (i was in headful)
3. I can't just launch in headless to see if it will work; auth will get lost due to the current incompatibilities between headless/headful profiles
4. I was able to separately validate that headless can play mp3, running the following script:

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async() => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    ignoreDefaultArgs: ['--mute-audio'],
  });
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('http://www.noiseaddicts.com/free-samples-mp3/?id=2544');
  await page.click('span.map_play');
})();

So all in all, there's no problem with headless not playing audio. However, it might be spotify that detects automation and prevents you from doing so.

Hope this helps.

[LukasBombach]

Thanks for the work @aslushnikov !!

[LukasBombach]

It seems Spotify isn't blocking Puppeteer, it's just that it throws an error:

Exception: DOMException
code: 9
message: "Unsupported keySystem or supportedConfigurations."
name: "NotSupportedError"

when calling Navigator.requestMediaKeySystemAccess

you can see that in headful mode

The problem might be that chromium does not support a DRM system: #720

[edospadoni]

Hi, try to execute puppeteer with headless: false but in a fake display env. It's a trick to exec the web player in background without using a real display.

xvfb-run-safe.sh /usr/bin/node index.js

xvfb deps:

<yum | dnf | apt-get> install xvfb

xvfb-run-safe.sh:

#!/bin/bash

: "${xvfb_lockdir:=$HOME/.xvfb-locks}"
: "${xvfb_display_min:=99}"
: "${xvfb_display_max:=599}"

mkdir -p -- "$xvfb_lockdir" || exit

i=$xvfb_display_min
while (( i < xvfb_display_max )); do
  if [ -f "/tmp/.X$i-lock" ]; then
    (( ++i )); continue
  fi
  exec 5>"$xvfb_lockdir/$i" || continue
  if flock -x -n 5; then
    exec /usr/bin/xvfb-run --server-num="$i" "$@" || exit 
  fi
  (( i++ ))
done

puppeteer conf:

this.browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: false,
    defaultViewport: {
      width: 1280,
      height: 768
    },
    executablePath: "/usr/bin/google-chrome",
    ignoreDefaultArgs: ["--mute-audio", "--hide-scrollbars"]
});

[vitalspace]

Hi, try to execute puppeteer with headless: false but in a fake display env. It's a trick to exec the web player in background without using a real display.

xvfb-run-safe.sh /usr/bin/node index.js

xvfb deps:

<yum | dnf | apt-get> install xvfb

xvfb-run-safe.sh:

#!/bin/bash

: "${xvfb_lockdir:=$HOME/.xvfb-locks}"
: "${xvfb_display_min:=99}"
: "${xvfb_display_max:=599}"

mkdir -p -- "$xvfb_lockdir" || exit

i=$xvfb_display_min
while (( i < xvfb_display_max )); do
  if [ -f "/tmp/.X$i-lock" ]; then
    (( ++i )); continue
  fi
  exec 5>"$xvfb_lockdir/$i" || continue
  if flock -x -n 5; then
    exec /usr/bin/xvfb-run --server-num="$i" "$@" || exit 
  fi
  (( i++ ))
done

puppeteer conf:

this.browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: false,
    defaultViewport: {
      width: 1280,
      height: 768
    },
    executablePath: "/usr/bin/google-chrome",
    ignoreDefaultArgs: ["--mute-audio", "--hide-scrollbars"]
});

Is there a way to execute your code with node xvfb?

[edospadoni]

Hi, try to execute puppeteer with headless: false but in a fake display env. It's a trick to exec the web player in background without using a real display.
xvfb-run-safe.sh /usr/bin/node index.js
xvfb deps:

<yum | dnf | apt-get> install xvfb

xvfb-run-safe.sh:

#!/bin/bash

: "${xvfb_lockdir:=$HOME/.xvfb-locks}"
: "${xvfb_display_min:=99}"
: "${xvfb_display_max:=599}"

mkdir -p -- "$xvfb_lockdir" || exit

i=$xvfb_display_min
while (( i < xvfb_display_max )); do
  if [ -f "/tmp/.X$i-lock" ]; then
    (( ++i )); continue
  fi
  exec 5>"$xvfb_lockdir/$i" || continue
  if flock -x -n 5; then
    exec /usr/bin/xvfb-run --server-num="$i" "$@" || exit 
  fi
  (( i++ ))
done

puppeteer conf:

this.browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    headless: false,
    defaultViewport: {
      width: 1280,
      height: 768
    },
    executablePath: "/usr/bin/google-chrome",
    ignoreDefaultArgs: ["--mute-audio", "--hide-scrollbars"]
});

Is there a way to execute your code with node xvfb?

The way is described above: xvfb-run-safe.sh /usr/bin/node index.js

[xxx59]

Hi please dose the above method work on Spotify headless chrome mode?