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Docker image ships Chrome but no ChromeDriver, causing WDIO 9.28+ to hang indefinitely #766

Description

@nair-sumesh

Describe the bug
The ghcr.io/ui5-community/wdi5 Docker image ships with google-chrome-stable installed but no
ChromeDriver. With @wdio/utils 9.28+, all workers hang indefinitely at Execution of N workers started and
never print RUNNING in chrome. No error is thrown — the process just freezes until the pipeline timeout
kills it.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Use the ghcr.io/ui5-community/wdi5:3.0.10-node24 Docker image
  2. Run npx wdio with CHROME_BROWSER_VERSION=latest (the default)
  3. Observe workers start but never proceed

Expected behavior
Workers should start and print RUNNING in chrome - within a few seconds, as they did with
@wdio/utils ≤9.19.

Logs/Console Output

Execution of 24 workers started at 2026-06-19T11:53:45.174Z

[hangs indefinitely - no output, no error]

Runtime Env:

  • wdi5/wdio-ui5-service-version: 3.0.10
  • wdio-version: 9.28.0 (installed by npm install inside the image)
  • node-version: v24.16.0
  • OS: Debian Bullseye (inside ghcr.io/ui5-community/wdi5:3.0.10-node24)
  • Browser: Chrome 149.0.7827.155 (pre-installed in image)
  • ChromeDriver: not installed in the image

Additional context

Root cause: In @wdio/utils 9.28+, setupPuppeteerBrowser() always makes an HTTP request to
googlechromelabs.github.io to resolve CHROME_BROWSER_VERSION=latest into a real version number. In
restricted/corporate network environments this request hangs indefinitely instead of timing out. Since
the image doesn't install ChromeDriver or set CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, there is no way to skip this call.

The bypass condition in mapCapabilities() skips setupDriver() entirely when CHROMEDRIVER_PATH is set —
but the image never sets it.

Workaround: Install ChromeDriver manually and set CHROMEDRIVER_PATH before running WDIO.

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