From 9e5adafd7af9fe7c1b25ca86eb8cabdf844ed2c5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Miguel=20=C3=81ngel?= <miguel.sierra@heygen.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2026 23:44:53 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] fix(engine): add --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required
 to headless Chrome args (#1177)
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GSAP's volume tween on an <audio> element causes Chrome to construct an
AudioContext. In headless Chrome, the autoplay policy blocks AudioContext
startup with "The AudioContext was not allowed to start" — the frame-capture
loop then waits for it indefinitely and deadlocks before the BeginFrame
fallback can recover. The render hangs at "Starting frame capture" with
0 output frames and times out.

Adding --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required lets the AudioContext start
without a user gesture, which is safe in the headless rendering context where
no real user interaction is possible anyway.

Applied to both the main Chrome launch (browserManager) and the HDR capture
path (hdrCapture).

Fixes #1176. Reported by Abhai (Infinity agent, external).

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 packages/engine/src/services/browserManager.ts | 6 ++++++
 packages/engine/src/services/hdrCapture.ts     | 1 +
 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/browserManager.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/browserManager.ts
index 9e60bbe20..2f4ebac0d 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/browserManager.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/browserManager.ts
@@ -580,6 +580,12 @@ export function buildChromeArgs(
     ...getLowMemoryFlags(),
     // Disable features that add overhead
     "--disable-features=AudioServiceOutOfProcess,IsolateOrigins,site-per-process,Translate,BackForwardCache,IntensiveWakeUpThrottling",
+    // Allow AudioContext to start without a user gesture in headless Chrome.
+    // Without this flag, any code path that constructs an AudioContext
+    // (including GSAP tweening an <audio> element's volume) triggers the
+    // autoplay policy and causes the AudioContext to stay suspended. The
+    // frame-capture loop then blocks waiting for it, deadlocking the render.
+    "--autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required",
   ];
 
   if (browserGpuMode !== "software") {
diff --git a/packages/engine/src/services/hdrCapture.ts b/packages/engine/src/services/hdrCapture.ts
index 2d2975780..93ac78f23 100644
--- a/packages/engine/src/services/hdrCapture.ts
+++ b/packages/engine/src/services/hdrCapture.ts
@@ -310,5 +310,6 @@ export function buildHdrChromeArgs(width: number, height: number): string[] {
     "--disable-sync",
     "--no-zygote",
     "--force-gpu-mem-available-mb=4096",
+    "--autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required",
   ];
 }