What causes "Playwright did not return a PID" in stablyai/orca?

Confirm projectDir points at the repo root where package.json and the e2e script exist.

stablyai/orca · error · Error

Playwright did not return a PID

Error message

Playwright did not return a PID

What it means

The harness spawns the Playwright test process (`pnpm run test:e2e:terminal-ibus-hangul-native`-style invocation) with stdio inherit and ORCA_E2E_NATIVE_IBUS_HANGUL=1. If spawn() returns no pid the test driver never launched, so awaiting testExitCode is impossible. Common when node/pnpm cannot be found or the project dir is wrong.

Source

Thrown at config/scripts/run-terminal-ibus-hangul-e2e.mjs:200

      [
        'run',
        'test:e2e:headful',
        '--workers=1',
        '--',
        'tests/e2e/terminal-ibus-hangul-native.spec.ts'
      ],
      {
        cwd: projectDir,
        env: {
          ...process.env,
          ORCA_E2E_FORWARD_APP_LOGS: '1',
          ORCA_E2E_NATIVE_IBUS_HANGUL: '1'
        },
        stdio: 'inherit'
      }
    )
    if (!testProcess.pid) {
      throw new Error('Playwright did not return a PID')
    }
    evidence.playwrightPid = testProcess.pid
    console.error(`[terminal-ime] started Playwright PID ${testProcess.pid}`)
    testExitCode = await waitForExit(testProcess)
  } finally {
    if (ibusProcess?.pid) {
      evidence.ibusGroupBeforeCleanup = processGroupMembers(ibusProcess.pid)
      evidence.ibusGroupAfterCleanup = await stopOwnedProcessGroup(ibusProcess.pid)
    }
    if (windowManagerProcess?.pid) {
      evidence.windowManagerGroupAfterCleanup = await stopOwnedProcessGroup(
        windowManagerProcess.pid
      )
    }
    closeSync(ibusLogFd)
    closeSync(windowManagerLogFd)
    mkdirSync(path.join(projectDir, 'test-results'), { recursive: true })
    copyFileSync(

View on GitHub (pinned to 1136503c6a)

Solutions

Confirm projectDir points at the repo root where package.json and the e2e script exist.
Ensure pnpm and node are on PATH in process.env inherited by the spawn (the session env block does not re-export PATH).
Run the Playwright command by hand inside an xvfb session to surface the fork error.

Example fix

// before
// projectDir wrong or pnpm missing on PATH -> no pid
// after
// run from repo root and verify pnpm
which pnpm && pnpm run test:e2e:terminal-ibus-hangul-native

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const { spawnSync } = require('node:child_process')
if (spawnSync('which', ['pnpm']).status !== 0 || !existsSync(projectDir + '/package.json')) {
  console.error('pnpm missing or projectDir invalid'); process.exit(1)
}

Type guard

function hasPid(child: { pid?: number }): child is { pid: number } {
  return typeof child.pid === 'number'
}

Try / catch

const testProc = spawn(cmd, args, { cwd: projectDir, env, stdio: 'inherit' })
testProc.once('error', (e) => { console.error('playwright spawn failed:', e.message) })
if (!testProc.pid) throw new Error('Playwright did not return a PID')

Prevention

Validate projectDir resolves to the repo root with package.json.
Ensure pnpm/node are on PATH in the inherited env.
Attach an 'error' listener to spawn to capture ENOENT with context.

When it happens

Trigger: The spawn of the Playwright runner fails to fork — wrong cwd (projectDir), missing node/pnpm on PATH in the inherited env, or the spawned command's binary is absent.

Common situations: projectDir resolved incorrectly (run from outside repo root); pnpm not on PATH inside the X11 session env; the test script name changed in package.json so the spawn command is invalid; node binary moved.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of stablyai/orca@1136503c6a (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/33d590a5d67d6447. Report an issue: GitHub.