OpenTable SHA256 Extractor

A collection of browser automation implementations for extracting SHA256 hashes from OpenTable's GraphQL API. These hashes are required for making authenticated requests to OpenTable's restaurant availability endpoints.

What This Repository Contains

This repository provides multiple working implementations for extracting SHA256 hashes that OpenTable uses for their persisted GraphQL queries. The extracted hashes can be used to make direct API calls to check restaurant availability without going through the web interface.

Primary use case: Automated restaurant availability checking and reservation monitoring.

Key Features

• Multi-browser support: Works with both Puppeteer/Chromium and Playwright/Firefox
• Hash caching: Extracted hashes are cached for 1 hour to reduce requests
• Request interception: Captures GraphQL requests in real-time
• Anti-detection measures: Includes stealth techniques to avoid bot detection
• Comprehensive documentation: Full investigation of what works and what doesn't

Repository Contents

Working Implementations

• opentable_playwright_firefox_sha_extractor.py - ✅ Playwright + Firefox (recommended)
• opentable_pyppeteer_sha_extractor.py - ✅ Puppeteer + Chromium (original working solution)

Non-Working Implementation

• opentable_playwright_chromium_sha_extractor.py - ❌ Playwright + Chromium (blocked by OpenTable)

Supporting Files

• main.py - Example usage and testing
• test_playwright_firefox.py - Test suite for Playwright implementation
• requirements.txt - Python dependencies
• README.md - This documentation

Browser Support Matrix

Library	Browser	Status	Notes
Puppeteer	Chromium	✅ Works	Original working implementation
Playwright	Firefox	✅ Works	Alternative working implementation
Playwright	Chromium	❌ Blocked	OpenTable specifically blocks Playwright's Chromium

Why Playwright + Chromium Doesn't Work

OpenTable has sophisticated anti-automation detection that specifically targets Playwright's Chromium implementation while allowing:

• Puppeteer + Chromium ✅ (works)
• Playwright + Firefox ✅ (works)

This suggests OpenTable can distinguish between different automation libraries at the browser fingerprinting level, not just user agents or launch arguments.

Investigation Results

Multiple approaches were tested to make Playwright + Chromium work:

1. Response events instead of request events - Failed
2. Removed --disable-http2 flag - HTTP/2 protocol errors
3. Matched exact Firefox user agent - Still blocked
4. Route interception - Still blocked
5. Puppeteer-style launch arguments - Still blocked
6. All anti-detection measures - Still blocked

Conclusion: OpenTable's detection is specifically targeting Playwright's Chromium implementation at a deeper level than typical bot detection.

Key Differences Between Working Implementations

Puppeteer (Working)

• Uses pyppeteer.launch() with Chromium
• Chrome user agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36
• Request interception via setRequestInterception(True)
• Launch args: --disable-dev-shm-usage, --disable-web-security, --disable-features=VizDisplayCompositor

Playwright Firefox (Working)

• Uses playwright.firefox.launch()
• Firefox user agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/121.0
• Request interception via page.on('request')
• Launch args: --no-sandbox, --disable-setuid-sandbox, --disable-http2

Usage

Firefox Implementation (Working)

from opentable_playwright_firefox_sha_extractor import get_playwright_firefox_sha_extractor

extractor = get_playwright_firefox_sha_extractor()
sha_hash = await extractor.get_sha256_hash()
print(f"SHA256: {sha_hash}")

Chromium Implementation (Non-working)

from opentable_playwright_chromium_sha_extractor import get_playwright_chromium_sha_extractor

# NOTE: This will fail due to OpenTable blocking Chromium
extractor = get_playwright_chromium_sha_extractor()
sha_hash = await extractor.get_sha256_hash()  # Returns None

Results

The Firefox implementation successfully extracts the SHA256 hash for RestaurantsAvailability: c056cbf4dbe6a95dbb5f814916415dcff0b2c93c180a456d0d4a3a3f38d0b2cc

The Chromium implementation fails due to OpenTable blocking Chromium browsers.

Installation

pip install -r requirements.txt
playwright install firefox

Testing

# Test Playwright Firefox implementation
python test_playwright.py

# Test pyppeteer implementation (may have dependency issues)
python test_pyppeteer.py