Cypress "The Test Runner unexpectedly exited via a exit event" in CI

The browser process Cypress controls died, so Cypress reports an unexpected exit with the signal. SIGKILL usually means the OOM killer reclaimed memory; SIGSEGV/SIGTRAP usually means a browser crash, often tied to a small /dev/shm in a container.

What this error means

A run dies mid-suite with "The Test Runner unexpectedly exited via a 'exit' event with signal SIGSEGV" (or SIGKILL), frequently on long suites or memory-heavy specs.

cypress

We detected that the Chromium Renderer process just crashed.

The Test Runner unexpectedly exited via a "exit" event with signal "SIGSEGV"

Please check your system and reboot if necessary.

Common causes

Out of memory (SIGKILL by the OOM killer)

The browser accumulates state across many tests; on a memory-limited container the kernel kills it, ending the run.

A small /dev/shm causing renderer crashes

Chrome uses /dev/shm for shared memory; the default 64MB in many containers is too small and the renderer segfaults.

How to fix it

Increase shared memory for the container

Give the browser a larger /dev/shm so the renderer does not crash under memory pressure.

.github/workflows/ci.yml

container:
  image: cypress/included:13.15.0
  options: --shm-size=2gb

Free memory between specs

Limit how many runs Cypress keeps in memory so long suites do not exhaust RAM.

cypress.config (env)

{
  "numTestsKeptInMemory": 0,
  "experimentalMemoryManagement": true
}

How to prevent it

Run Cypress with at least 1-2GB of /dev/shm in containers.
Enable memory management and trim retained runs for long suites.
Split very large suites so no single process accumulates too much state.