[Bug]: Navigation interrupted by another navigation when launching from persistent context for second time

[fwdekker-pc]

Version

1.60.0

Steps to reproduce

1. Clone my repo at https://github.com/fwdekker-pc/playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch
2. Run

   uv sync

3. Run

   # EITHER
   uv run playwright install firefox
   # OR
   PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_GC=1 uv run playwright install firefox
   # OR
   $env:PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_GC=1 ; uv run playwright install firefox

4. Ensure the directory profile does not exist:

   # EITHER
   rm -r profile
   # OR
   remove-item -recurse profile

5. Run

   uv run -m playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch

   The browser will launch and then close again.
6. Repeat step 5.

Expected behavior

In both step 5 and step 6, the browser should launch, and after launching is complete, explicitly navigate to about:blank. After all, the main body is:

context = await p.firefox.launch_persistent_context("profile", headless=False)
await context.pages[0].goto("about:blank")

Since we're using a persistent context, the profile should be reused when launching again in step 6.

The output of step 6 should be the same as that of step 5, namely: nothing.

Actual behavior

Step 5 runs as intended. However, during step 6, an error is raised with the following message:

Page.goto: Navigation to "about:blank" is interrupted by another navigation to "about:blank"

Full traceback

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 203, in _run_module_as_main
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 88, in _run_code
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\src\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\__main__.py", line 12, in <module>
    run(async_main())
    ~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\AppData\Local\Python\pythoncore-3.14-64\Lib\asyncio\runners.py", line 204, in run
    return runner.run(main)
           ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\AppData\Local\Python\pythoncore-3.14-64\Lib\asyncio\runners.py", line 127, in run
    return self._loop.run_until_complete(task)
           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\AppData\Local\Python\pythoncore-3.14-64\Lib\asyncio\base_events.py", line 719, in run_until_complete
    return future.result()
           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\src\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\__main__.py", line 9, in async_main
    await context.pages[0].goto("about:blank")
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\.venv\Lib\site-packages\playwright\async_api\_generated.py", line 9611, in goto
    await self._impl_obj.goto(
    ...<4 lines>...
    )
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\.venv\Lib\site-packages\playwright\_impl\_page.py", line 557, in goto
    return await self._main_frame.goto(**locals_to_params(locals()))
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\.venv\Lib\site-packages\playwright\_impl\_frame.py", line 156, in goto
    await self._channel.send(
        "goto", self._navigation_timeout, locals_to_params(locals())
    )
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\.venv\Lib\site-packages\playwright\_impl\_connection.py", line 69, in send
    return await self._connection.wrap_api_call(
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    ...<3 lines>...
    )
    ^
  File "C:\Users\FlorineDekker\Workspace\playwright_python_navigation_interrupted_by_another_navigation_at_second_launch\.venv\Lib\site-packages\playwright\_impl\_connection.py", line 559, in wrap_api_call
    raise rewrite_error(error, f"{parsed_st['apiName']}: {error}") from None
playwright._impl._errors.Error: Page.goto: Navigation to "about:blank" is interrupted by another navigation to "about:blank"
Call log:
  - navigating to "about:blank", waiting until "load"

Additional context

• This bug does not occur when using Chromium.
• This bug does not occur when using Firefox' headless mode.
• This bug started occurring in v1.60.0. This bug was not present in v1.59.0.
• This bug does not occur if you navigate to any page other than about:blank directly after launch

Environment

- Operating System: Windows 11 25H2
- CPU: x64
- Browser: Firefox
- Python Version: 3.14

[beanscg]

Bean Labs did a read-only navigation-source pass. The likely diagnostic points are:

• packages/playwright-core/src/server/browserContext.ts, where persistent context state is tracked through _isPersistentContext.
• packages/playwright-core/src/server/frames.ts, where a new navigation can throw NavigationAbortedError with "interrupted by another navigation".

For the second persistent-context launch repro, I would instrument whether a pending document/navigation survives the first context close or is reintroduced during the second launch. That should distinguish browser-context reuse cleanup from ordinary frame navigation races.

No PR opened from this pass.

[dcrousso]

apologies, i thought i was able to reproduce and fix the issue, but my solution caused other problems and now i cannot reproduce this myself 😅

Florine W. Dekker (@fwdekker-pc) can you try updating to playwright 1.61.0-beta-1781741799000 (or later) and see if that fixes anything?

[fwdekker-pc]

Hi Devin Rousso (@dcrousso)! My original issue was using Playwright Python, which is currently at 1.60.0, and afaik doesn't have a beta version available. I don't really have time to figure out how to set up a Playwright Node.js environment.

The Python code from my minimal working example is actually just the following short piece of code:

from asyncio import run

from playwright.async_api import async_playwright

async def async_main():
    async with async_playwright() as p:
        context = await p.firefox.launch_persistent_context("profile", headless=False)
        await context.pages[0].goto("about:blank")

run(async_main())

Run that code twice from the same directory, and you'll encounter the bug.

I suppose rewriting it to create a minimal example in Node.js shouldn't be too hard, but again, I don't have time to figure out how to set up the proper dev environment; I don't even have Node.js installed on this machine.

[dcrousso]

ok i converted this to JS and was able to reproduce it with 1.60.0 and 1.61.0-beta-1781741799000, but not with 1.62.0-alpha-2026-06-18 so this might already be fixed