Bug: Print Designer fails to find Chromium in Docker environments (mismatched config keys)

[Jarif-Junaeed]

Description

When using Print Designer in a containerized environment (like frappe_docker), PDF generation fails with a ValidationError: Chromium is not downloaded.

This occurs because Print Designer looks for the configuration key chromium_binary_path or a local bench directory, whereas Frappe standardizes on the key chromium_path. Because Print Designer does not find its specific key, it ignores the existing, functional Chromium binary provided by the Docker image at /usr/bin/chromium-headless-shell.

This issue was originally identified and discussed here: frappe/frappe_docker#1821

Steps to Reproduce

1. Deploy a standard Frappe/ERPNext Docker stack.
2. Install the print_designer app.
3. Attempt to generate a PDF using a Print Designer format.
4. Observe the traceback: frappe.throw("Chromium is not downloaded. Please run the setup first.")

Technical Analysis

In print_designer/pdf_generator/generator.py, the _initialize_chromium method specifically pulls from:

self.CHROMIUM_BINARY_PATH = site_config.get("chromium_binary_path", "")

However, Frappe core and the official Docker images use chromium_path. When chromium_binary_path is empty, the app falls back to _find_chromium_executable(), which strictly checks for a chromium folder within the bench directory. This folder does not (and should not) exist in a managed Docker environment where Chromium is installed system-wide.

Proposed Solution

Print Designer should align with Frappe core standards to ensure out-of-the-box compatibility with Docker.

Suggested Change:
Modify _initialize_chromium to check for chromium_path as a fallback if chromium_binary_path is not set.

# Current implementation
self.CHROMIUM_BINARY_PATH = site_config.get("chromium_binary_path", "")

# Recommended implementation
self.CHROMIUM_BINARY_PATH = site_config.get("chromium_binary_path") or site_config.get("chromium_path", "")

Environment Info

• Frappe version: 16.10.1
• ERPNext version: 16.7.0
• Print Designer version: 1.6.5
• Deployment: frappe_docker

[trustedcomputer]

See #490 , you bring up a good point, though, frappe and print_designer should be using the same variable.

[trustedcomputer]

In the meantime, if you still want to use print_deisgner, you could change your compose file to use configurator to:

    bench set-config -g chromium_binary_path /usr/bin/chromium-headless-shell;

[Jarif-Junaeed]

In the meantime, if you still want to use print_deisgner, you could change your compose file to use configurator to:

    bench set-config -g chromium_binary_path /usr/bin/chromium-headless-shell;

Yeah that's what I've been doing for now.

See #490 , you bring up a good point, though, frappe and print_designer should be using the same variable.

Yeah, that's better than what it was before (why isn't it merged yet?), but even then I don't really think print_designer or frappe should even be downloading it's own instance of chrome. Shouldn't it just prompt the user to do it instead by their package manger (e.g, apt)? But I suppose that is beyond the scope of this issue.

I am gonna open a PR that implements my recommended change.

[trustedcomputer]

I haven't gotten much traction in this repository. I hope you do.