From cb92516e93d1419e977842ff4a5d153701132f95 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daniel Gus <mathmtit@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2026 07:23:11 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] fix(video): hide the ffmpeg console window on Windows

launchProcess() builds its spawn() options without windowsHide, so on
Windows the ffmpeg process started for video recording gets a console
window of its own (inherited from the terminal, or newly created when
the parent has none - e.g. the CLI session daemon, which has run
detached with windowsHide: true since #42155). One window appears per
recording and steals focus.

#41630 asked for windowsHide on every launchProcess call, but that was
closed as not planned: an earlier attempt (#38776) was reverted in
#39994 after it broke Inspector, codegen and UI mode (#39990), since
those processes do have real windows of their own. ffmpeg has none, so
make windowsHide an opt-in LaunchProcessOptions field and set it only
for the ffmpeg launch in videoRecorder.ts, leaving every other
launchProcess call unaffected.

Fixes #43515
---
 packages/playwright-core/src/server/videoRecorder.ts | 3 +++
 packages/utils/processLauncher.ts                    | 5 +++++
 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/packages/playwright-core/src/server/videoRecorder.ts b/packages/playwright-core/src/server/videoRecorder.ts
index 20261820cd659..bb5872766659e 100644
--- a/packages/playwright-core/src/server/videoRecorder.ts
+++ b/packages/playwright-core/src/server/videoRecorder.ts
@@ -209,6 +209,9 @@ class FfmpegVideoRecorder {
       command: this._ffmpegPath,
       args,
       stdio: 'stdin',
+      // ffmpeg has no window of its own, so hiding its console on Windows is safe here,
+      // unlike for browser/driver processes. See https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/43515.
+      windowsHide: true,
       log: (message: string) => debugLogger.log('browser', message),
       tempDirectories: [],
       attemptToGracefullyClose: async () => {
diff --git a/packages/utils/processLauncher.ts b/packages/utils/processLauncher.ts
index 14a982d66e4d4..5c00deb303c5a 100644
--- a/packages/utils/processLauncher.ts
+++ b/packages/utils/processLauncher.ts
@@ -30,6 +30,10 @@ export type LaunchProcessOptions = {
   args?: string[],
   env?: NodeJS.ProcessEnv,
   shell?: boolean,
+  // Only pass this for child processes that have no window of their own (e.g. ffmpeg).
+  // See https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/43515: passing this unconditionally
+  // for every launched process previously broke Inspector, codegen and UI mode.
+  windowsHide?: boolean,
 
   handleSIGINT?: boolean,
   handleSIGTERM?: boolean,
@@ -142,6 +146,7 @@ export async function launchProcess(options: LaunchProcessOptions): Promise<Laun
     env: options.env,
     cwd: options.cwd,
     shell: options.shell,
+    windowsHide: options.windowsHide,
     stdio,
   };
   const spawnedProcess = childProcess.spawn(options.command, options.args || [], spawnOptions);