[BUG] outputDir handling: unclear error message and the need to delete it

[alexnb]

System info

• Playwright Version: v1.40
• Operating System: 22.04.1-Ubuntu or Docker
• Browser: All
• Other info:

Source code

• I provided exact source code that allows reproducing the issue locally.

Config file

// playwright.config.ts
import type { PlaywrightTestConfig } from "@playwright/test";

const config: PlaywrightTestConfig = {
  outputDir: "/root/out",
};
export default config;

Test file (self-contained)

No test files required.

package.json

{
    "name": "test1",
    "private": true,
    "dependencies": {},
    "scripts": {
      "test:e2e-packaged": "playwright test .",
      "test:install": "playwright install firefox"
    },
    "devDependencies": {
      "@playwright/test": "^1.40.0"
    }
}

Steps

• create a directory which can not be deleted by the user running playwright:

sudo mkdir /root/out

• call playwright

yarn install && yarn test:install && yarn test:e2e-packaged

Expected

Clear error message about outputDir not being writable.
The best would be when playwright would just delete the contents of the outputDir and not the outputDir itself.

Actual

TypeError: object is not iterable (cannot read property Symbol(Symbol.iterator))

It is really hard to understand what is wrong. Also the documentation says that the outputDir will be cleaned (and not deleted).

I noticed this issue in a docker environment, where a docker volume mount point was specified as an outputDir. Since a couple of days this does not work anymore, with the above error message. Although the directory specified was rwx for the user, playwright failed to run (because it probably tried to delete it and deleting volume mount point does not work withe the message device busy)

[yury-s]

Scratch that, turns out it was fixed recently by #28239 but the fix is not published yet. It will be released in the next patch release of playwright.