Argument 'BrowserInstance' must be 'Web browser instance'

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Posted on by Dapta

I have an issue where PAD at random gives me this error: Argument 'BrowserInstance' must be 'Web browser instance'

It can be both after either attaching to or starting a new browser.

But for this specific issue, it's just when I open the Chrome browser, navigate to a website and then I want PAD to click a button - and it's just about 50/50 whether I get this issue or not at this point.

PAD is executing unattended on a VM, and I have been wondering if it can be caused by a lack of resources? Is this a common error?

Does anybody know why this happens at random and what I can do to bulletproof this?

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Power Automate Desktop

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Set up an on error action to reattach to the browser if an error occurs.

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Dapta 11 on at

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Hi @MichaelAnnis

Thanks for your comment. I've tried that, and it usually bugs out as well, sadly.

It's hard to say, but maybe that solutions helps the error-rate up a bit from 50/50 to 40/60. None of my fail-safes has been bulletproof, as of now I'm having it close the browser, open a new instance and try the script again (which still fails).

I was hoping that there was something I've overseen in PAD - do you experience the same error commonly?

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RituT 4 on at

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Hi, I had the similar issue while launching the New chrome browser instance and that got resolved after I have uninstalled and installed back the Microsoft power desktop extension. See if that works for you as well.

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Jimbotron3000 31 on at

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Did you ever find a solution that works? This is happening to me constantly. Sometimes it hangs after opening the browser. With error handling set to continue on error after timeout, I then get the 'BrowserInstance must be Web browser instance' error.

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ryule 929 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Yeah I get this with IE and the Automation browser on my VM.....works just fine on my laptop....

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CParsons09 141 on at

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I'm also facing this issue now that we are testing unattended automation. Re-installing the MS extension did not solve the issue.

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ryule 929 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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My Edge browser has started doing this randomly.....

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ApexOrigin 150 on at

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I have starting having some reliability issues recently with browser actions. I am suspecting it has something to do with an update Microsoft made recently to the browser extensions.

In my case, I added wait statements, and the processes are more reliable now. These are processes that have been running on WinAutomation for years without any issue and without wait statements, and then all of sudden, issues. It's the same problem with PAD, so that's why I suspect a change to the browser extensions software.

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ryule 929 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Frustrating! So you are adding the wait statements before the action directly after starting the browser? I think I have some on most, but maybe I need to extend them.

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ApexOrigin 150 on at

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I put them between all the code lines where the problem exists.

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