(Created on )

Puppeteer: Unsupported archive format: {value}

The browser installer does not support the downloaded archive's extension/format.


The browser installer does not support the downloaded archive’s extension/format.

Error message

Unsupported archive format: {value}

{value} is replaced by the value shown in your error message.

How this error happens

A custom provider can return an archive whose extension the browser installer does not support. Renaming or serving an unsupported file does not make it extractable.

The class illustrates a provider used by standalone browser installation.

import {
    DefaultProvider,
} from "@puppeteer/browsers";

class MirrorProvider extends DefaultProvider {
    getDownloadUrl() {
        return new URL(
            "https://mirror.example/browser.rar"
        );
    }
}

The format error occurs when the installer tries to unpack that downloaded file. Defining the provider alone does not reproduce it.

How to fix

Serve the actual browser archive in a supported format and with the expected internal layout.

class MirrorProvider extends DefaultProvider {
    getDownloadUrl() {
        return new URL(
            "https://mirror.example/chrome-linux64.zip"
        );
    }
}

Things to keep in mind

Do not merely rename a RAR or HTML file to .zip. The corrected URL must serve a genuine compatible browser ZIP. Package-managed installation avoids maintaining a custom archive provider.

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