fix(install): stop auto-detecting a system browser; always install bundled Chromium - #50852
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…verride
The installer scanned PATH/well-known locations for a Chrome/Chromium binary
and, when found, skipped the bundled Playwright Chromium download and wrote that
path into ~/.hermes/.env as AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH. On Snap-based systems
`command -v chromium` resolves to /snap/bin/chromium, whose sandbox blocks
agent-browser's control socket under /tmp -- so every browser_navigate hung
until the 60s timeout fired ("opening web page failed").
Drop the system-browser fallback entirely (per maintainer direction):
find_system_browser()/Find-SystemBrowser now honor ONLY an explicit, user-set
AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH override -- no PATH scan, no well-known-path scan.
A /snap/* path is rejected even when set explicitly, since its confinement is
the bug. Applied to both install.sh (Linux/macOS) and install.ps1 (Windows).
Crucially, also auto-repair already-affected installs: the bad snap path
persists in .env and is read directly by the runtime, and the installer skips
re-config when AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH is already set ("already
configured"), so a plain reinstall/update never recovered an existing user. New
strip_snap_browser_override() removes a snap-pointing AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH
(and its auto-written comment) from .env on every install/update, run from both
browser-setup paths (install_node_deps and ensure_browser), so updating is
enough to recover. A deliberately-set non-snap override is left untouched.
docker/stage2-hook.sh is intentionally untouched: it discovers the bundled
Playwright Chromium, not a system browser.
…epair Replace the old "skips download when a system browser exists" assertions with tests for the new behavior: - no PATH scan for browser command names, and the "use the system browser" path is gone; - find_system_browser consults only an explicit AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH override (which still skips the bundled download); - strip_snap_browser_override runs on both install paths and a /snap/* path is rejected, so already-affected installs auto-recover on update.
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…aths source cleanly configure_browser_env_from_system_browser writes the browser override as AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH=$browser_path with no surrounding quotes. Post-NousResearch#50852 this path is opt-in only: it runs when the user has exported AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH explicitly. When that override contains a space (macOS /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome, Windows C:\Program Files\...), the written line is invalid under POSIX shell source: the shell parses the first word after the space as a command, emits "no such file or directory", and leaves the var empty. install.ps1 has the same bug at both writer sites. The Hermes runtime is unaffected (it loads .env via python-dotenv, which parses the unquoted value), but anyone who sources ~/.hermes/.env from a shell — which override users are especially likely to do — gets a stderr error and a silently-empty var. Fix: wrap the value in double quotes at all four writer sites (install.sh + install.ps1). Generalize the strip_snap_browser_override regexes from '^AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/snap/' to '="?/snap/' so the Snap-stripper still fires on the new quoted form — without this the migration silently no-ops on a quoted snap path, a regression the naive one-line fix would introduce. Update the test assertion pinning the old regex and add behavioral tests that write a spaced path and re-source the .env under both bash and POSIX sh.
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Problem
Reported in Discord (LikiusInik): "hermes desktop: opening web page failed" — every
browser_navigatehangs ~60s and fails.Root cause (confirmed in https://discord.com/channels/1053877538025386074/1518581111008268389): the installer auto-detects a system browser. On a Snap-based Linux box,
find_system_browserrunscommand -v chromium, which resolves to/snap/bin/chromium. Snap's sandbox blocks agent-browser's control socket under/tmp, so the browser tool times out on first use. The installer also (a) skips the bundled Playwright Chromium download and (b) writesAGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/snap/bin/chromiuminto~/.hermes/.env. Re-running the installer never recovers — the Snap binary is still detected and the download stays skipped, which is exactly why commenting the.envline + re-running did nothing for the reporter.Fix
Drop the system-browser fallback entirely. Every install now uses the bundled Playwright Chromium, so the browser tool behaves identically across hosts.
find_system_browser()(install.sh) andFind-SystemBrowser(install.ps1) now honor only an explicit, user-setAGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH. No PATH scan, no macOS.appscan, no Windows well-known-path scan.AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATHstill skips the bundled download (explicit override, not a fallback)..envwording accordingly.Tests
tests/test_install_sh_browser_install.pyupdated to assert the new behavior:test_install_script_does_not_autodetect_system_browser_on_path— the PATH-scan command list is gone; download is only skipped for an explicit override.test_install_script_honors_explicit_browser_override—find_system_browserconsults only the override env var.Affected user workaround (pre-merge)
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