karma ChromeHeadless have not captured in 60000 ms, killing

TL;DR

Karma kills ChromeHeadless after 60s because the browser process never connected back to the Karma server. In containers this is almost always Chrome refusing to run as root without --no-sandbox; locally it is usually a wrong CHROMEBIN path or a missing launcher. Add a custom launcher with the container flags and point CHROMEBIN at a real Chrome binary.

Error

WARN [launcher]: ChromeHeadless have not captured in 60000 ms, killing.

Steps

1. Confirm karma-chrome-launcher is installed: run npm ls karma-chrome-launcher. Expected: a version number in the tree, not an empty result.
2. Check CHROMEBIN points at a real binary: run `"$CHROMEBIN" --version`. Expected: it prints a Chrome version string.
3. Add a custom launcher in karma.conf.js. Expected: Karma starts Chrome without sandbox errors in the log.

customLaunchers: {
  ChromeHeadlessNoSandbox: {
    base: 'ChromeHeadless',
    flags: ['--no-sandbox', '--disable-gpu', '--disable-dev-shm-usage']
  }
},
browsers: ['ChromeHeadlessNoSandbox'],

4. Raise the capture timeouts in the same config: captureTimeout: 120000, browserNoActivityTimeout: 120000. Expected: slow CI agents get 120s before Karma gives up.
5. Re-run the suite. Expected: Executed N of N SUCCESS instead of the kill warning.

When to use

• The log shows have not captured in 60000 ms, killing for ChromeHeadless.
• Tests run in Docker or CI as root.
• Chrome was recently installed or CHROME_BIN was just set.

When not to use

• Tests are captured but assertions fail (a test bug, not a launcher bug).
• The failure is a webpack or bundling error before any browser starts.
• You are launching Firefox or another browser (different launcher, different flags).

Tool compatibility

• Karma 5 and 6, karma-chrome-launcher 3.x.
• Chrome or Chromium 90 and newer, headed or headless.

Variant phrasings

Chrome have not captured in 60000 ms

Headed Chrome, same cause: the browser process never phoned home. Same launcher fix, minus the headless base.

Disconnected (0 times), because no message in 10000 ms

The browser connected then went silent. Raise browserNoActivityTimeout rather than captureTimeout.

Cannot start Chrome

CHROME_BIN is wrong or Chrome is not installed at all. Fix the path or install the browser before touching timeouts.

Why it happens

Karma spawns the browser and waits for it to open the capture URL and report back. Chrome running as root in Docker exits immediately without --no-sandbox, so nothing ever connects and the 60s timer fires. Locally, a stale CHROME_BIN or a missing launcher package produces the same silence.

Edge cases

• --disable-dev-shm-usage is needed when shared memory is tiny in Docker; without it the renderer crashes after capture.
• A browsers flag on the CLI overrides the config file, so check both.
• FirefoxHeadless needs karma-firefox-launcher; these Chrome flags do nothing there.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_CTqOHiZVRFeuQ7Y2xJP00w

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_CTqOHiZVRFeuQ7Y2xJP00w

Thread query: karma ChromeHeadless have not captured in 60000 ms, killing

TL;DR: Karma kills ChromeHeadless after 60s because the browser process never connected back to the Karma server. In containers this is almost always Chrome refusing to run as root without --no-sandbox; locally it is usually a wrong CHROMEBIN path or a missing launcher. Add a custom launcher with the container flags and point CHROMEBIN at a real Chrome binary.