[Bug]: Unable to use vulkan for hardware acceleration in headless mode

[ruochenjia]

Minimal, reproducible example

import puppeteer from "puppeteer";

const chrome = await puppeteer.launch({
	pipe: true,
	dumpio: true,
	channel: "chrome",
	product: "chrome",
	timeout: 10000,
	headless: false,
	handleSIGHUP: false,
	handleSIGINT: false,
	handleSIGTERM: false,
	protocolTimeout: 5000,
	defaultViewport: {
		width: 1280,
		height: 720,
		isMobile: false,
		hasTouch: false,
		isLandscape: true,
		deviceScaleFactor: 1
	},
	args: [
		// Flags for using vulkan is explicitly specified
		"--enable-gpu",
		"--use-vulkan"
	]
});

Error string

no error

Bug behavior

• Flaky
• PDF

Background

No response

Expectation

Hardware acceleration for the headless browser should be enabled, and use vulkan for rendering.

Reality

Hardware acceleration is enabled, but vulkan is disabled.

Screenshot for the browser instance at chrome://gpu:

Puppeteer configuration file (if used)

No response

Puppeteer version

22.4.0

Node version

20.11.1

Package manager

npm

Package manager version

10.5.0

Operating system

Linux

[github-actions]

This issue was not reproducible. Please check that your example runs locally and the following:

• Ensure the script does not rely on dependencies outside of puppeteer and puppeteer-core.
• Ensure the error string is just the error message.

  • Bad:

    Error: something went wrong
      at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/username/repository/script.js:2:1)
      at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1159:14)
      at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1213:10)
      at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1037:32)
      at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:878:12)
      at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:81:12)
      at node:internal/main/run_main_module:23:47

  • Good: Error: something went wrong.

• Ensure your configuration file (if applicable) is valid.
• If the issue is flaky (does not reproduce all the time), make sure 'Flaky' is checked.
• If the issue is not expected to error, make sure to write 'no error'.

Once the above checks are satisfied, please edit your issue with the changes and we will
try to reproduce the bug again.

---

Analyzer run

[OrKoN]

Could you try the instructions from https://developer.chrome.com/blog/supercharge-web-ai-testing ? It's possible that drivers are missing? If that does not work, please file a crbug.com/new for the Headless component.

[ruochenjia]

@OrKoN The instructions worked for me, but the documentation in troubleshooting.md for enabling GPU in headless mode should be updated. Currently the only option specified in the documentation is --enable-gpu, which no longer works in the new headless mode.

[OrKoN]

Updated in #12052 (review)