ERROR: Playwright does not support chromium on ubuntu26.04-x64

Why your job broke this week

GitHub is moving ubuntu-latest from Ubuntu 24.04 to 26.04 in stages, starting 19 October 2026 and finishing by 19 November (actions/runner-images#14748). Until then, the same job can pass on one run and fail on the next, depending on which image it gets.

Playwright downloads browsers built for your OS version. Playwright 1.60.0 and older have no builds for ubuntu26.04-x64, so the install step fails. Support arrived in PR #41025 and shipped in 1.61.0 on 15 June 2026.

With --with-deps, the log ends like this:

BEWARE: your OS is not officially supported by Playwright; installing dependencies for ubuntu26.04-x64 as a fallback.
Cannot install dependencies for ubuntu26.04-x64 with Playwright 1.60.0!
Failed to install browsers
Error: ERROR: Playwright does not support chromium on ubuntu26.04-x64

Without --with-deps, only the last two lines appear. The browser name changes with what you install:

Error: ERROR: Playwright does not support chromium-headless-shell on ubuntu26.04-x64
Error: ERROR: Playwright does not support firefox on ubuntu26.04-x64
Error: ERROR: Playwright does not support webkit on ubuntu26.04-x64

The cause and the fix are the same for all four.

Step 1: find the version you actually run

package.json doesn't tell you. A range like ^1.56.1 allows 1.64.1, but if your lockfile resolved it to 1.58.0, CI installs 1.58.0. One of the first public reports of this error was exactly that.

Check playwright-core too. Another package can pull in an old core after you upgrade @playwright/test.

Step 2: upgrade

# Node (npm). Use your package manager's equivalent, and upgrade `playwright` too if you depend on it directly.
npm install -D @playwright/test@latest
npx playwright install --with-deps chromium

# Python
pip install -U "playwright>=1.61"
python -m playwright install --with-deps chromium

For Node we ran 1.61.0 and 1.64.1; for Python, 1.61.0. Both installed Chromium and launched it headless. We did not run 1.62 or 1.63, or launch Firefox, WebKit or headed Chromium on the new versions.

.NET (Microsoft.Playwright) and Java (com.microsoft.playwright:playwright) both have a 1.61.0 release. We have not run them on 26.04. They ship the same driver, so we expect the same boundary, but that is untested.

Upgrading also moves you to newer Chromium, Firefox and WebKit builds. Screenshot baselines and some timing-sensitive tests may change; expect a small follow-up PR for those.

If you can't upgrade yet

Pin the runner. This gives the job the image it had before the rollout:

jobs:
  e2e:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04   # was: ubuntu-latest

Write down why you pinned it and when you'll remove the pin. A pin nobody removes becomes the next break.

Or override the platform (Chromium only, a workaround). If the job has to run on 26.04 with Playwright 1.60.0, this makes Playwright download its Ubuntu 24.04 build instead:

PLAYWRIGHT_HOST_PLATFORM_OVERRIDE=ubuntu24.04-x64 npx playwright install --with-deps chromium

On our 26.04 run with 1.60.0, this exited 0, printed BEWARE: your OS is not officially supported by Playwright; downloading fallback build for ubuntu24.04-x64., and a headless Chromium test passed, with or without the variable set when the tests ran. This is not support: you are running a 24.04 browser build on 26.04 libraries, a combination Playwright doesn't test. We tried Chromium only. Use it to unblock a release, then upgrade.

Receipts

Run on 20 October 2026, 01:51–02:19 UTC, in Docker image ubuntu:26.04 (sha256:f144425ff09be612d6d9ad965196e9cdc23dae1f42110a8a11a3e9a8198759f7, Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS, amd64), a fresh container for each group, Node 22.22.1 and Python 3.14.4 from the Ubuntu archive. This is the same Ubuntu release as GitHub's new runner image, not that image itself. The test launches headless Chromium, opens about:blank and prints the title and browser version.

Source, read 19 October 2026:

• packages/playwright-core/src/server/registry/index.ts has no ubuntu26.04-x64 entries at v1.60.0 and 10 at v1.61.0.
• The error text comes from registry/index.ts ("does not support … on …") and registry/dependencies.ts ("Cannot install dependencies for …").
• Release 1.61.0: npm on 15 June 2026; PyPI, NuGet and Maven Central each list 1.61.0. There is no 1.60.x patch release.