[Bug]: page.close() hangs forever — Chromium acks Target.closeTarget with success:true without closing a target mid-commit in a meta-refresh navigation #42366

Version

1.62.1

Steps to reproduce

Run the self-contained script below (node repro.js, only dependency is playwright). It serves two local pages, one of which client-side redirects immediately via <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='/target.html'"> (the W3C ACT-Rules bc659a "passed" fixtures are real-world examples of such pages), then loops: goto → evaluate (destroyed by the refresh navigation — expected) → page.close().

const http = require('http');
const {chromium} = require('playwright');

const pages = {
  '/a.html': `<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head><title>a</title>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='/target.html'"></head>
    <body><p>redirecting</p></body></html>`,
  '/target.html': `<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head><title>t</title></head>
    <body><p>arrived</p></body></html>`
};

const settles = (promise, ms) => Promise.race([
  promise.then(() => 'resolved').catch(() => 'rejected'),
  new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => resolve('NEVER SETTLED'), ms))
]);

(async () => {
  const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
    res.setHeader('content-type', 'text/html');
    res.end(pages[req.url] || pages['/target.html']);
  });
  await new Promise(resolve => server.listen(0, resolve));
  const base = `http://127.0.0.1:${server.address().port}`;
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const context = await browser.newContext();
  let hangs = 0;
  for (let round = 0; round < 10; round++) {
    const page = await context.newPage();
    await page.goto(`${base}/a.html`, {waitUntil: 'load'});
    await page.evaluate(
      () => new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 100))
    ).catch(() => {});
    const outcome = await settles(page.close(), 10000);
    console.log(`round ${round}: page.close() ${outcome}`);
    if (outcome === 'NEVER SETTLED') hangs++;
  }
  console.log(`${hangs}/10 rounds hung`);
  process.exit(0);
})();

Expected behavior

page.close() always settles — resolves once the page is gone, or rejects with an error.

Actual behavior

On 7–8 of 10 rounds (Chromium only), the page.close() promise never settles — no resolution, no rejection, no timeout. .catch() never fires, so any loop awaiting close() freezes permanently and silently. In our accessibility-scanning harness this froze two long captures for 35+ minutes each on real W3C fixture pages before diagnosis.

Root cause (from a DEBUG=pw:protocol trace of a hanging round)

• Playwright sends Target.closeTarget {targetId}.
• The browser replies {"result":{"success":true}}.
• The target does not actually close: the meta-refresh navigation was mid-commit, and the same session then emits the redirect destination's full lifecycle — Page.frameNavigated, DOMContentLoaded, load, paint events, networkIdle — all after the successful-looking closeTarget response.
• Target.targetDestroyed is never emitted; page.close() waits for it indefinitely.

The browser-side half reproduces without Playwright: a raw-CDP client (plain WebSocket) gets closeTarget → success:true with no targetDestroyed ever emitted and the target still listed in Target.getTargets (~3/10 rounds, ~45–60 ms commit window). We are filing a Chromium bug for that half and will cross-link it here. Playwright's half is that page.close() trusts the acknowledgment with no deadline or retry.

Additional context — matrix (10 rounds per cell, same repro)

After a hang, context.close() still settles and destroys the page (8/8 recoveries) — the context teardown path is unaffected. Verified workarounds: page.close({runBeforeUnload: true}), or racing close() against a deadline and calling context.close() on expiry.

Possibly related: #33806 (hangs while waiting for pending navigations) — different in that no dialog is involved and the acknowledged-but-not-performed Target.closeTarget is visible in the protocol trace.

Environment

• Operating System: Linux (kernel 7.0.0-30-generic)
• Browser: Chromium (bundled, HeadlessChrome/151.0.7922.34)
• Node.js: 24.14.1