Jenkins Pipeline Error "Cannot create BrowserWindow before app is ready"

[wichopy]

Is this a Feature or Bug?

Bug

Current behavior:

Running Cypress on a Jenkins build pipeline returns the following error:

Cannot create BrowserWindow before app is ready
Error: Cannot create BrowserWindow before app is ready
    at Error (native)
    at Object._newBrowserWindow (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/gui/windows.js:90:14)
    at Object.create (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/gui/windows.js:183:18)
    at Object._render (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/browsers/electron.js:60:21)
    at /Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/browsers/electron.js:108:24
    at tryCatcher (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/util.js:16:23)
    at Promise._settlePromiseFromHandler (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:510:31)
    at Promise._settlePromise (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:567:18)
    at Promise._settlePromise0 (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:612:10)
    at Promise._settlePromises (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:691:18)
    at Async._drainQueue (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/async.js:133:16)
    at Async._drainQueues (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/async.js:143:10)
    at Immediate.Async.drainQueues (/Users/web/Library/Jenkins/workspace/ontinuous-integration-setup-XUUWEDMZSZATM5VNREUERBR2OSTUGL6EADKBRHDOVCDZRWLEB7LQ/node_modules/cypress/dist/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/async.js:17:14)
    at runCallback (timers.js:574:20)
    at tryOnImmediate (timers.js:554:5)
    at processImmediate [as _immediateCallback] (timers.js:533:5)

Desired behavior:

Run cypress as part of the testing stage in Jenkins pipeline.

• Operating System: MacOS 10.12.6
• Cypress Version: 1.0.3

[bahmutov]

Interesting, how can we recreate this failure? Is there a small example public repository that shows this behavior?

[wichopy]

My tests started running randomly but then this issue came up again. After looking into it more, I noticed the tests started working after changing the way I was defining env vars in my Jenkinsile. I made dynamic env vars with bash scripts grabbing the current branch name and date for naming reports that I am autogenerating.

When ran a simple cypress run with no extra arguments, my tests started running again.

With Jenkin's crazy idiosynchrasies I think I will find another way to get this information or just have simpler report titles... this caused too many headaches for me.

[joelgrimberg]

Just found out that I have the same problem. I will try to reproduce it in a public repo.

possibly related:
meetalva/alva#137

has somebody found a workaround?

[wichopy]

Funny enough I got this error again yesterday evening when we reset our build server. This time I notice this in the logs before the ‘BrowserWindow’ error came up.

_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL

[wichopy]

I found this: https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-23736

Last time I debugged this issue, I physically logged in on the machine and ran the cypress tests myself during debugging, and never logged off. I think this may be our answer, going to try it out when I get into work.

[wichopy]

No luck with having the account logged in. I was able to run cypress manually but the automated cypress command doesn't work.

[wichopy]

Seems like this error is specific to MacOS, ran on our Jenkins server running on Ubuntu and everything is working fine. Possible fix could be using Cypress's docker image?

https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress-docker-images

[sonchau]

Same issue on Mac High Sierra v10.13.6
Working fine on Ubuntu 18.04

[msilesgap]

I've Mojave 10.14.2 (18C54) and I'm still getting the same problem. I have Jenkins locally installed on my mac and I want to run the sample tests

npm WARN prepare removing existing node_modules/ before installation

> cypress@3.1.4 postinstall /Users/Shared/Jenkins/Home/workspace/CypressTraining/node_modules/cypress
> node index.js --exec install


Cypress 3.1.4 is installed in /Users/Shared/Jenkins/Library/Caches/Cypress/3.1.4

added 197 packages in 5.763s
+ ./node_modules/.bin/cypress run
_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
2019-01-13 18:55:43.427 Cypress[6401:664446] +[NSXPCSharedListener endpointForReply:withListenerName:]: an error occurred while attempting to obtain endpoint for listener 'ClientCallsAuxiliary': Connection interrupted

================================================================================

  (Run Starting)

  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │ Cypress:  3.1.4                                                            │
  │ Browser:  Electron 59 (headless)                                           │
  │ Specs:    20 found (examples/actions.spec.js, examples/aliasing.spec.js, … │
  └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘


────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                                
  Running: examples/actions.spec.js...                                (1 of 20) 
Cannot create BrowserWindow before app is ready
Error: Cannot create BrowserWindow before app is ready
    at Object._newBrowserWindow (/Users/Shared/Jenkins/Library/Caches/Cypress/3.1.4/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/gui/windows.js:92:14)
    at Object.create (/Users/Shared/Jenkins/Library/Caches/Cypress/3.1.4/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/gui/windows.js:195:18)
    at Object._render (/Users/Shared/Jenkins/Library/Caches/Cypress/3.1.4/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/browsers/electron.js:87:21)
    at /Users/Shared/Jenkins/Library/Caches/Cypress/3.1.4/Cypress.app/Contents/Resources/app/packages/server/lib/browsers/electron.js:213:24
    at <anonymous>:null:null

Build step 'Execute shell' marked build as failure
Finished: FAILURE

[jennifer-shehane]

Can you attempt to follow these directions? May be related to Jenkins permissions issues https://stackoverflow.com/a/21028195/5878476