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CloudBrowser

Interact with websites using a cloud-based browser instance

Actions7

Overview

This node, named "CloudBrowser," enables interaction with websites through a cloud-based browser instance. It supports navigating to URLs, capturing screenshots, retrieving HTML content, generating PDFs, and controlling browser instances remotely. This is particularly useful for web scraping, automated testing, visual monitoring of web pages, or generating reports from dynamic web content.

For the Content resource with the Get Screenshot From Website operation, the node navigates to a specified URL using a cloud browser, then captures a screenshot of the page according to user-defined options such as full page capture, image format (PNG or JPEG), quality, and clipping region.

Practical examples:

  • Automatically capture screenshots of product pages for monitoring price changes or layout updates.
  • Generate visual snapshots of dashboards or reports hosted on web applications.
  • Capture specific areas of a webpage by defining clip coordinates for focused screenshots.

Properties

Name Meaning
URL to Navigate The URL of the website to open and capture a screenshot from.
Navigation Options Options controlling how navigation behaves:
- Wait Until: When to consider navigation finished (load, domcontentloaded, networkidle0, networkidle2).
- Timeout (Ms): Max time to wait for navigation.
Browser Configuration Settings for the cloud browser instance:
- Browser Type: Choose between Chrome, Chromium, or ChromeHeadlessShell.
- Headless Mode: Run browser without UI.
- Stealth Mode: Enable stealth to avoid detection.
- Keep Open (Seconds): Time before auto-closing browser.
- Label: Name for the browser instance.
- Save Session: Save session for reuse.
- Recover Session: Recover saved session.
Custom Arguments Additional command-line arguments to pass to the browser on startup.
Ignored Default Arguments Default browser arguments to ignore when launching.
Proxy Configuration Proxy server settings:
- Host, Port, Username, Password.
Screenshot Options Controls screenshot specifics:
- Full Page: Capture entire scrollable page or just viewport.
- Quality: Image quality for JPEG (0-100).
- Type: Image format (jpeg or png).
- Clip: Defines rectangular area to capture with X, Y, Width, Height coordinates.

Output

The node outputs JSON data containing details about the captured screenshot:

  • url: The final URL after navigation.
  • title: The page title.
  • screenshot: A base64-encoded data URI string of the screenshot image.
  • screenshotBinary: The raw binary buffer of the screenshot image.
  • filename: Suggested filename for the screenshot file, including timestamp and extension.
  • fileExtension: File extension based on image type (jpg or png).
  • mimeType: MIME type of the image (image/jpeg or image/png).

The output includes both the encoded image data for easy embedding and the raw binary for saving or further processing.

Dependencies

  • Requires an active API token credential for the cloud browser service.
  • Uses Puppeteer library to connect and control the remote browser instance.
  • Network access to the target URLs and the cloud browser API endpoint.
  • Optional proxy configuration if accessing sites behind proxies.

Troubleshooting

  • No WebSocket address received from the browser service: Indicates failure to open a browser instance. Check API token validity, network connectivity, and service availability.
  • Timeout errors during navigation: Increase the timeout value in Navigation Options or verify the target URL's responsiveness.
  • Invalid clip dimensions: Ensure clip coordinates and sizes are within the page bounds; otherwise, screenshot may fail or be empty.
  • Authentication or permission errors: Confirm that the API token has required permissions and is correctly configured in n8n credentials.
  • Browser connection failures: Verify that the WebSocket address is correct and the cloud browser instance is running.

Links and References

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