cannot close context as none is active in browser

Error message

cannot close context as none is active in browser

What it means

Browser.CloseContext closes the context k6 tracks as the active one, which is created lazily when the first page is opened. The mapping browser.closeContext() is backed by a promise; if b.context is nil — no page was ever created in this browser, or the context was already closed/cleared — CloseContext returns this error instead of panicking.

Source

Thrown at internal/js/modules/k6/browser/common/browser.go:691

	deadline := time.After(timeout)
	for len(b.getPages()) > 0 {
		select {
		case <-deadline:
			b.logger.Debugf("Browser:Close",
				"timed out after %s waiting for %d page(s) to detach; closing anyway",
				timeout, len(b.getPages()))
			return
		case <-ticker.C:
		}
	}
}

// CloseContext is a short-cut function to close the current browser's context.
// If there is no active browser context, it returns an error.
func (b *Browser) CloseContext() error {
	if b.context == nil {
		return errors.New("cannot close context as none is active in browser")
	}
	return b.context.Close()
}

// Context returns the current browser context or nil.
func (b *Browser) Context() *BrowserContext {
	return b.context
}

// IsConnected returns whether the WebSocket connection to the browser process
// is active or not.
func (b *Browser) IsConnected() bool {
	return !b.closing.Load() && b.browserProc.isConnected()
}

// NewContext creates a new incognito-like browser context.
func (b *Browser) NewContext(opts *BrowserContextOptions) (*BrowserContext, error) {
	_, span := TraceAPICall(b.vuCtx, "", "browser.newContext")

View on GitHub (pinned to 93accf6570)

Solutions

Guard the call: if (browser.context()) await browser.closeContext()
Create at least one page before closing the context in each iteration that closes it
Don't double-close — browser.close() already tears contexts down; drop the manual closeContext in that path

Example fix

// before
await browser.closeContext(); // throws when no context was ever opened

// after
if (browser.context()) {
  await browser.closeContext();
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: type-guard

Validate before calling

if (browser.context()) {
  await browser.closeContext();
}

Type guard

function hasActiveContext(b) {
  return b.context() !== undefined && b.context() !== null;
}

Try / catch

try {
  await browser.closeContext();
} catch (e) {
  if (!e.message.includes('cannot close context as none is active')) throw e;
  // no context was open — nothing to do
}

Prevention

Pair every closeContext with the page creation that opened the context (same code path)
Let browser.close() handle final teardown instead of manual closeContext at end-of-test
Track whether the iteration actually created a page before running cleanup helpers

When it happens

Trigger: Calling await browser.closeContext() before any browser.newPage() in the iteration; calling it twice (the second call finds context already nil); calling it after browser.close() has torn everything down.

Common situations: Setup/teardown helpers that unconditionally close the context per iteration even when setup failed early; conditional test flows where page creation was skipped (early exit); reused scripts where a guard was removed.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@93accf6570 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2bff042345cb6da2. Report an issue: GitHub.