[BUG] extra http headers are not sent with Websocket requests

System info

Playwright Version: [v1.35, 1.40]
Operating System: [Ubuntu 22.04]
Browser: [Chromium]
Other info: Python 3.11.2

Scenario: I am testing an application that is to be deployed behind an AWS Application Load Balancer. The ABLB is configured to inject additional headers into all HTTP traffic that it services. I am attempting to use playwright to mimic that behavior by setting those additional headers on the Playwright. This works for regular HTTP requests, but does not inject the additional HTTP headers when the application makes a WebSocket connection to the server.

Source code

I've modified the playwright tests to demonstrate the lack of headers being sent:

$ git diff tests/*
diff --git a/tests/async/test_websocket.py b/tests/async/test_websocket.py
index eb90f95..f2f670b 100644
--- a/tests/async/test_websocket.py
+++ b/tests/async/test_websocket.py
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ from tests.server import Server
 
 
 async def test_should_work(page: Page, ws_server: WebSocketServerServer) -> None:
+    await page.set_extra_http_headers({'HeHe-Sock': 'HaHa'})
     value = await page.evaluate(
         """port => {
         let cb;
diff --git a/tests/server.py b/tests/server.py
index 06e3446..c792d2a 100644
--- a/tests/server.py
+++ b/tests/server.py
@@ -273,6 +273,7 @@ class WebSocketProtocol(WebSocketServerProtocol):
         pass
 
     def onOpen(self) -> None:
+        print(self.http_request_data)
         self.sendMessage(b"incoming")
 
     def onMessage(self, payload: bytes, isBinary: bool) -> None:

Produces the following output:

$ python -m pytest tests/async/test_websocket.py  -k work\[chromium
=========================================== test session starts =============================================================
platform linux -- Python 3.11.2, pytest-7.4.2, pluggy-1.0.0 -- /some/python3.12.2/directory/bin/python
cachedir: .pytest_cache
rootdir: /some/path/playwright-python
configfile: pyproject.toml
plugins: repeat-0.9.1, asyncio-0.21.1, flaky-3.7.0, xdist-3.3.1, rerunfailures-12.0, timeout-2.1.0, cov-4.1.0
asyncio: mode=Mode.AUTO
collected 18 items / 17 deselected / 1 selected                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

tests/async/test_websocket.py::test_should_work[chromium] b'GET /ws HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: localhost:50479\r\nConnection: Upgrade\r\nPragma: no-cache\r\nCache-Control: no-cache\r\nUser-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) HeadlessChrome/120.0.6099.28 Safari/537.36\r\nUpgrade: websocket\r\nOrigin: null\r\nSec-WebSocket-Version: 13\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br\r\nSec-WebSocket-Key: U77GHD/H1pmVcmytWUjsXg==\r\nSec-WebSocket-Extensions: permessage-deflate; client_max_window_bits\r\n\r\n'
PASSED

=========================================== 1 passed, 17 deselected, 1 warning in 1.02s =====================================

Expected

I expect the HTTP 101 requests ( made to upgrade a connection to a websocket ) to include the headers added to the page.

I have tried setting additional headers with the following APIs:

https://playwright.dev/python/docs/api/class-browser#browser-new-context
https://playwright.dev/python/docs/api/class-browsercontext#browser-context-set-extra-http-headers
https://playwright.dev/python/docs/api/class-page#page-set-extra-http-headers

These API docs imply that all connections will have these additional headers added to them.

Actual

In all my test cases, the extra headers are present on non-websocket requests.
The HTTP 101 requests made to upgrade a connection do not have the additional headers available on them.

I can repro with WebKit and Chromium. Passes in Firefox:

diff --git a/tests/page/page-set-extra-http-headers.spec.ts b/tests/page/page-set-extra-http-headers.spec.ts
index 284621edd..0a6a6c74f 100644
--- a/tests/page/page-set-extra-http-headers.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/page/page-set-extra-http-headers.spec.ts
@@ -29,6 +29,22 @@ it('should work @smoke', async ({ page, server }) => {
   expect(request.headers['baz']).toBe(undefined);
 });
 
+it('should set it on WebSocket connections', async ({ page, server }) => {
+  await page.setExtraHTTPHeaders({
+    foo: 'bar',
+  });
+  const webSocketRequestPromise = server.waitForWebSocketConnectionRequest();
+  await page.evaluate(port => {
+    let cb;
+    const result = new Promise(f => cb = f);
+    const ws = new WebSocket('ws://localhost:' + port + '/ws');
+    ws.addEventListener('open', () => { ws.close(); cb(); });
+    return result;
+  }, server.PORT);
+  const webSocketRequest = await webSocketRequestPromise;
+  expect(webSocketRequest.headers['foo']).toBe('bar');
+});
+
 it('should work with redirects', async ({ page, server }) => {
   server.setRedirect('/foo.html', '/empty.html');
   await page.setExtraHTTPHeaders({

Hi!
It's important bug, blocks writing tests for projects with ws, any ideas how to fix it?

Alexey (@aletzal)

Alexey (@aletzal) I've refiled this per Pavel Feldman (@pavelfeldman) 's note above as #32247

We find the problem described very annoying. We would be very happy if it were given a higher priority.

this is important

It reproduces not only on playwright-python but a normal playwright, too.

In our project extraHTTPHeaders are used for authorization, and this bug blocks the automation on an app with WSs.

UPDATE: workaround: switch to Firefox (instead of Chromium) for cases with WSs.

Same problem in Playwright for .NET, can't write tests that read ws connection authentication info from headers.

This bug is still actual! And seems no workarounds for Chrome are possible?

Tried to intercept the WebSocket call manually like this:

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('Add headers to WebSocket connection', async ({ page }) => {
  // Intercept the WebSocket connection URL
  await page.route('**/ws-endpoint', async (route) => {
    const request = route.request();
    
    // Fetch existing headers and add your custom ones
    const headers = {
      ...request.headers(),
      'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_TOKEN',
      'X-Custom-Header': 'YourValue'
    };

    // Continue the request with the new headers
    await route.continue({ headers });
  });

  // Navigate to your page that establishes the WebSocket
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
});

But it doesn't work, the page.route() intercepts only HTTP calls, not WS.

And after a year of silence here, we collected 22 upvotes to this issue and no workarounds... And Chrome is still dominating Firefox, so switching to Firefox is not a good turn...

So, maybe someone still invented a working workaround for this issue?

test(websocket): cover `setExtraHTTPHeaders` and `locale` on the hand…

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[BUG] extra http headers are not sent with Websocket requests #28948

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[BUG] extra http headers are not sent with Websocket requests #28948

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mxschmitt commented on Jan 11, 2024

pavelfeldman commented on Apr 22, 2024

pavelfeldman commented on Aug 16, 2024

aletzal commented on Aug 21, 2024

vEpiphyte commented on Aug 21, 2024

jbuettnerbild commented on Dec 23, 2024

geminigeek commented on Jan 28, 2025

adequatica commented on Mar 20, 2025

Markz878 commented on Apr 11, 2025

MurzNN commented on Jul 10, 2026

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