Browser Automation Hangs on Mac/Linux After Library Update Removed Keychain Flags
A recent pull request in the browser-use library removed two Chrome flags—--use-mock-keychain and --password-store=basic—that previously told Chromium to bypass the OS credential store on startup. Without these flags, Chromium synchronously attempts to access the system keychain during profile initialization, causing headless sessions to hang indefinitely and desktop users to see repeated password prompts. The Chrome DevTools Protocol debug port never opens as a result, triggering watchdog timeouts typically around 30 seconds. No official fix has been merged upstream yet, as three proposed pull requests remain under review. In the meantime, users can work around the issue by manually passing the two flags via BrowserProfile args, pinning to an older library version, or patching the flags back into the library's default Chrome arguments locally.
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