File download in headless chrome using Laravel/Dusk

Question

I'm trying to automate a file download in headless chrome using Laravel/Dusk.In GUI mode,the file downloads just fine in my download folder.But in headless mode,the download does not take place at all.Is there any way to solve this issue?

Answer 1

For those who come across this, I found a simple solution with the current version of Laravel at the time of writing this.

I suggest first creating a directory in your storage path called temp (probably want to gitignore this too), and then navigate to the DuskTestCase.php file setup with the Dusk installation.

Under the driver method, add the following under the section that initializes the ChromeOptions variable.

$options->setExperimentalOption('prefs', [
    'download.default_directory' => storage_path('temp')
]);

The driver function should now look like this:

$options = (new ChromeOptions())->addArguments([
    '--disable-gpu',
    '--headless',
    '--window-size=1920,1080'
]);

$options->setExperimentalOption('prefs', [
    'download.default_directory' => storage_path('temp')
]);

return RemoteWebDriver::create(
    'http://localhost:9515',
    DesiredCapabilities::chrome()->setCapability(
        ChromeOptions::CAPABILITY,
        $options
    )
);

As a side note, this worked for me with a PDF file created via JS, so I can't definitively say how this works with a file downloaded from the back-end.