[Bug]: Errors in the playwright config aren't clear when working in test files

[Stono]

Version

1.48.2

Steps to reproduce

Hi,
If there is an error in your platwright.config.ts for whatever reason (in my case i messed up an import), it's kind of a transparent failure in vscode.

When all is well: (notice the run icon):

When there's an error in the playwright server (notice no icon):

I can't find any obvious way of debugging this, typically I'd expect Playwright to appear in the Output window, but it does not:

I swear this used to be there, so is this a bug?

The nasty way this manifests for me is because we require some environment variables to be set i our playwright config file, and if the user forgets to set them, everything is just silently broken and i get loads of "playwright doesn't work in vscode" type questions.

Expected behavior

For it to be clear that the reason the test run icon isn't available is because playwright failed to load, and the reason is X

Actual behavior

As above

Additional context

No response

Environment

node 22

[pavelfeldman]

Config problems should be listed in the Problems tab of VS Code

[Stono]

It's probably down to complexity of my setup but that isn't the case here. So for example our "apps" have this as their playwright.config.ts:

import { generatePlaywrightConfig } from '@at/platform-checks'

export default generatePlaywrightConfig()

We do this because we publish generatePlaywrightConfig in a shared module (@at/platform-checks) that ensures all our apps are setup for playwright in the same way, and critically, it also had some coded that loaded/setup environment variables from the local apps config.

So now if you imagine that function, crudely, doing:

export const generatePlaywrightConfig = async (): Promise<PlaywrightTestConfig> => {
  const someVar = process.env.someVar
  if (typeof someVar === 'undefined') { throw new Error('You haven't set your environment variables!') }
  ...
}

This would cause an error if they haven't set someVar. And that error can be seen if you do npx playwright test:

However the way this manifests is a silent failure in vscode.

[yury-s]

@Stono would it be possible for you to share a reduced example where this happens? I that the error is thrown from a file outside of node modules, which is likely important. I've tried to recreate a repro based on your description but the error is always shown in the Problems view for me.

[Stono]

Sure thing. Will do tomorrow!

[yury-s]

We need more information to act on this report. Please file a new one with a repro and link to this issue when you get back to it!