fix(chromium): refuse WebUI navigations that crash the browser

packages/playwright-core/src/server/chromium/crPage.ts

@@ -49,6 +49,22 @@ import type * as channels from '../channels';
 
 export type WindowBounds = { top?: number, left?: number, width?: number, height?: number };
 
+// Browsers disallow these WebUI hosts in off-the-record profiles and redirect them to the original
+// profile, which crashes when the profile was created over CDP. Edge allows most of them in InPrivate.
+// See https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/41935.
+const kCrashingWebUIHosts = {
+  chromium: new Set(['apps', 'extensions', 'help', 'history', 'password-manager', 'settings']),
+  edge: new Set(['history']),
+};
+
+// Chromium canonicalizes WebUI urls as standard ones, so "VIEW-SOURCE:Chrome:Settings" ends up
+// being "chrome://settings/".
+function webUIHost(url: string): string {
+  const match = /^(?:view-source:)?(?:chrome|edge):\/*([^/?#]+)/i.exec(url);
+  const authority = match ? `http://${match[1]}` : '';
+  return URL.canParse(authority) ? new URL(authority).hostname : '';
+}
+
 export class CRPage implements PageDelegate {
   readonly utilityWorldName: string;
   readonly _mainFrameSession: FrameSession;
@@ -152,9 +168,18 @@ export class CRPage implements PageDelegate {
   }
 
   async navigateFrame(frame: frames.Frame, url: string, referrer: string | undefined): Promise<frames.GotoResult> {
+    this._assertNavigationDoesNotCrashBrowser(url);
     return this._sessionForFrame(frame)._navigate(frame, url, referrer);
   }
 
+  private _assertNavigationDoesNotCrashBrowser(url: string) {
+    if (this._browserContext.isPersistentContext())
+      return;
+    const isEdge = this._browserContext._browser.userAgent().includes('Edg/');
+    if ((isEdge ? kCrashingWebUIHosts.edge : kCrashingWebUIHosts.chromium).has(webUIHost(url)))
+      throw new Error(`Cannot navigate to "${url}": this page is not available in an isolated browser context, and opening it crashes the browser. Use browserType.launchPersistentContext() instead.`);
+  }
+
   async updateExtraHTTPHeaders(): Promise<void> {
     const headers = network.mergeHeaders([
       this._browserContext._options.extraHTTPHeaders,

tests/library/chromium/chromium.spec.ts

@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 import { contextTest as test, expect } from '../../config/browserTest';
 import { playwrightTest } from '../../config/browserTest';
 
+import type { Page } from 'playwright-core';
+
 test('should create a worker from a service worker', async ({ page, server }) => {
   const [worker] = await Promise.all([
     page.context().waitForEvent('serviceworker'),
@@ -747,6 +749,55 @@ test('should capture console.log from ServiceWorker start', async ({ context, pa
   expect(consoleMessage.type()).toBe('log');
 });
 
+test.describe('WebUI navigation', () => {
+  const isEdge = (channel: string | undefined) => !!channel?.startsWith('msedge');
+  const gotoError = (page: Page, url: string) => page.goto(url).then(() => '', e => e.message);
+
+  test('should refuse WebUI pages that crash the browser in an isolated context', async ({ browser, page, channel }) => {
+    test.info().annotations.push({ type: 'issue', description: 'https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/41935' });
+    test.skip(isEdge(channel), 'Edge only disallows chrome://history');
+
+    const hosts = ['apps', 'extensions', 'help', 'history', 'password-manager', 'settings'];
+    for (const url of [...hosts.map(host => `chrome://${host}`), 'chrome://extensions/', 'chrome://settings/help', 'chrome://SETTINGS', 'chrome:settings', 'chrome:///settings', 'view-source:chrome://settings'])
+      expect(await gotoError(page, url)).toContain(`Cannot navigate to "${url}"`);
+    // The refusal only matters because it keeps the browser process alive.
+    expect(browser.isConnected()).toBe(true);
+    expect(await page.evaluate(() => 1 + 1)).toBe(2);
+  });
+
+  test('should refuse WebUI pages that crash Edge in an isolated context', async ({ browser, page, channel }) => {
+    test.skip(!isEdge(channel), 'Edge has its own list of pages disallowed in InPrivate');
+
+    for (const url of ['edge://history', 'chrome://history', 'view-source:edge://history'])
+      expect(await gotoError(page, url)).toContain(`Cannot navigate to "${url}"`);
+    // Edge does allow these in InPrivate, so they must not be refused.
+    for (const url of ['edge://settings', 'edge://extensions'])
+      expect(await gotoError(page, url)).not.toContain('Cannot navigate to');
+    expect(browser.isConnected()).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  test('should navigate to WebUI pages that work in an isolated context', async ({ page, headless }) => {
+    test.skip(headless, 'WebUI pages are not available in headless');
+
+    const response = await page.goto('chrome://version');
+    expect(response.status()).toBe(200);
+  });
+
+  test('should navigate to any WebUI page in a persistent context', async ({ browserType, createUserDataDir, headless }) => {
+    test.skip(headless, 'WebUI pages are not available in headless');
+
+    const context = await browserType.launchPersistentContext(await createUserDataDir());
+    try {
+      const page = await context.newPage();
+      // Committing the navigation is all this asserts - waiting for the WebUI to load is slow and beside the point.
+      const response = await page.goto('chrome://extensions', { waitUntil: 'commit' });
+      expect(response.status()).toBe(200);
+    } finally {
+      await context.close();
+    }
+  });
+});
+
 test('should fire dialogclosed event when dialog is closed out of band', async ({ page }) => {
   // Establish the CDP session up front: creating one while a dialog is blocking the page hangs.
   const client = await page.context().newCDPSession(page);