Slideshow video is always simulated: chromium_headless_shell never finishes unpacking on Windows

[nani3766181-collab]

Hi, I am a beginner setting up YouTube Automation Agent v2.11.0 on Windows. Everything works (Gemini text and narration, YouTube connection, readiness check), except video rendering. Every video comes out as simulated.
What I see in the log: Video provider generation failed; using the local slideshow: browserType.launch: Executable doesn't exist at C:\Users\nani3\AppData\Local\ms-playwright\chromium_headless_shell-1181\chrome-win\headless_shell.exe Then: Local slideshow fallback failed, same error.
What I tried:
• npx playwright install chromium: the download reaches 100%, then the cursor blinks forever.
• npx playwright install chromium-headless-shell: same thing. The folder chromium_headless_shell-1181 gets created, but chrome-win only contains headless_command_resources.pak and headless_lib_data.pak. headless_shell.exe is missing.
• I deleted the folder and retried twice. Same result. I also left it running overnight.
• Windows Security protection history shows nothing about it. C drive has about 20 GB free.
Setup: Windows, Node.js 26.13.0 (installed with fnm), npm 11.20.0, Playwright 1.54.2, running in PowerShell.
My two questions:

1. Is there a known issue with the headless shell unpacking on Windows or with Node 26? Should I use an older Node LTS version?
2. Can the slideshow renderer use an already installed Chrome or Microsoft Edge instead of the headless shell? If yes, which setting should I change?
   Thank you very much for any help.

[atokim4]

Yes, it's a known Playwright bug, and your Node version is what triggers it. On Node 26 (and 24.16+) the unzip step in playwright install hangs after the download hits 100%, so you end up with a half-extracted folder and no headless_shell.exe. Upstream issue: microsoft/playwright#40724, fixed in Playwright 1.60 (microsoft/playwright#40747). The project pins 1.54.2, which still has it.

Any one of these gets you unstuck:

1. Switch to Node 22 LTS, since you already have fnm: fnm install 22, fnm use 22, delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\ms-playwright\chromium_headless_shell-1181, then run npx playwright install chromium again.
2. Or stay on Node 26 and bump Playwright in the project folder: npm install playwright@latest, then npx playwright install chromium. A newer Playwright downloads a newer browser build, which is fine because the renderer just calls chromium.launch().
3. Or skip the download and use Edge, which every Windows 10/11 machine already has.

About Edge: there's no setting for it. The slideshow renderer is utils/ai-video-generator.js, line 558, which is a plain chromium.launch(). Change it to:

const browser = await chromium.launch({ channel: 'msedge' });

or channel: 'chrome' if you have Chrome installed. Playwright then starts the installed browser and doesn't look in ms-playwright at all. I checked that 1.54.2 with channel: 'chrome' renders a page without any downloaded browser. I tested on Linux, not Windows, but msedge works the same way on Windows. The catch is that a git pull will overwrite that edit, so options 1 or 2 are cleaner long term.