8000 browser.click/get_text always fail with ref_not_found right after a fresh browser.snapshot · Issue #121 · amirlehmam/wmux · GitHub
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browser.click/get_text always fail with ref_not_found right after a fresh browser.snapshot #121

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browser.click/get_text always fail with ref_not_found right after a fresh browser.snapshot#121

Description

@yatran911
yatran911
opened on Jul 27, 2026

Summary

browser.click and browser.get_text always fail with ref_not_found, even immediately after a fresh browser.snapshot returns a valid ref tree with a nonzero refCount. Confirmed this is not related to the CLI, PowerShell, connection reuse, or timing - reproduced by talking to the named pipe directly.

Repro steps (raw JSON-RPC over the named pipe, bypassing the CLI entirely)

Using a single persistent TCP connection to \\.\pipe\wmux (so it's not a "new connection per request" issue):

  1. Send {"method":"browser.snapshot","params":{"caller":"<browser-surface-id>"},"id":1,"token":"<pipe-token>"}
    -> returns {"tree":"@e1: RootWebArea ...", "refCount": 300} (or similar, tree/refCount vary by page).
  2. Immediately (same connection, no delay) send {"method":"browser.click","params":{"ref":"e2","caller":"<same-surface-id>"},"id":2,"token":"<pipe-token>"}
    -> returns {"error":{"code":-32000,"message":"ref_not_found"}}

Also tried via the CLI (wmux browser snapshot then wmux browser click e2) - same result.

What I ruled out

  • Not a connection-lifetime issue: sent snapshot+click over the SAME socket without closing it between requests - still ref_not_found.
  • Not a timing issue: sent click with zero artificial delay right after snapshot - still fails. Also tried inside one long-lived Node process reusing the connection.
  • Not a caller/surface mismatch: explicitly passed the same caller (browser surface id, matching WMUX_SURFACE_ID / the id returned by list-surfaces for the type: "browser" entry) to both calls.
  • Not a ref format issue: tried "e2", "2", 2, and "@e2" as the ref value. All bare formats fail with ref_not_found; only the @-prefixed form fails differently, with Invalid parameters (consistent with docs saying refs take no @ prefix).
  • browser.get_text with the same ref also fails with ref_not_found, so this isn't click-specific - it looks like every ref-consuming command can't resolve refs that browser.snapshot just generated.

Environment

  • wmux (Windows), CLI at resources/cli/wmux.js
  • open, snapshot, screenshot, eval all work correctly - only ref-based interaction commands (click, get_text, presumably type/fill/wait) are affected.

Expected

browser.click (and other ref-based commands) should successfully resolve a ref returned by the immediately preceding browser.snapshot on the same browser surface.

Workaround

browser.eval with direct DOM JS (document.querySelector(...).click(), manual value + dispatchEvent('input')) works reliably and is what I'm using in the meantime.

Activity

  1. amirlehmam
    closed this as completedin 7a3973eon Jul 28, 2026

  2. amirlehmam commented on Jul 28, 2026

    @amirlehmam
    amirlehmam
    on Jul 28, 2026
    Owner

    Fixed in 7a3973e, shipping in v0.37.0.

    Your investigation was right on every single count, and that's what made this findable. Not a connection lifetime issue, not timing, not a caller mismatch — and once all three are ruled out, what's left is that the map never had a key called e2 in the first place.

    The bug

    buildAccessibilityTree keys its ref map with the display form the snapshot tree prints:

    const ref = `@e${refCounter}`;
refMap.set(ref, { nodeId, backendNodeId });   // key is "@e2"

    resolveRef then looked it up verbatim — so only the exact string @e2 matched. The CLI (wmux browser click e2), the orchestrator reference and every doc example pass the bare e2. Nothing that went through a normal path could ever resolve, which is why it hit click, type, fill, get_text and wait uniformly rather than looking like a per-command bug.

    And @e2 was not a workaround, which you also found. That's PowerShell: a leading @ is the splatting operator, so the argument is mangled by the shell before wmux sees it. Our own orchestrator reference has a "Sharp edges" note telling people to drop the @ for exactly that reason — which, given the map was keyed with the @, meant the docs were confidently steering everyone into the one form that could never work.

    The fix

    Refs are normalized to the canonical key before lookup, so e2, @e2, 2, E2 and e002 all resolve to the same node. The bare form stays the documented one, because it's the one that survives every shell.

    ref_not_found also says something useful now. It used to be a bare token, which is what sent you hunting connection lifetimes; it now distinguishes the two real causes:

    ref_not_found: no snapshot yet for this browser — run browser.snapshot first
ref_not_found: e400 — the last snapshot of this browser has @e1..@e300
ref_not_found: "submit" is not a ref — expected e12 or @e12

    Tests pin both spellings against a map built by a real buildAccessibilityTree run, so the display form and the lookup form can't drift apart again.

    Still true after this

    The staleness caveat is unchanged and unrelated: against client-rendered SPAs, refs can genuinely go stale between the snapshot and the click because the DOM was re-rendered underneath. browser.eval with a DOM query stays the right fallback there — and the user still watches every action live in the panel, which is the point of driving the browser this way at all.

    Thanks for the report. The raw-pipe repro that bypassed the CLI entirely is what turned this from "someone's shell is weird" into a one-line root cause.

  3. amirlehmam
    added a commit that references this issue on Jul 28, 2026

    fix: browser refs, drop marker, in-app update, dead popup links (#123 #…

    7882751
  4. bchap1n
    added a commit that references this issue on Jul 28, 2026

    fix(browser): resolve the bare `eN` refs every caller actually sends

    7a3973e
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