[REGRESSION]: toHaveURL passes in 1.25 but fails in 1.26

Context:

• GOOD Playwright Version: 1.25
• BAD Playwright Version: 1.26
• Operating System: Mac
• Extra: [any specific details about your environment]

Code Snippet

import { test, expect } from "@playwright/test";

test("test", async ({ page }) => {
  test.slow();
  await page.goto("https://nordicjs.com/2022");

  await page.locator('nav[role="navigation"] >> text=Speakers').click();
  await expect(page).toHaveURL("https://nordicjs.com/2022/speakers");

  await expect(page.locator('h3:has-text("Speakers")')).toBeVisible();

  await page.locator("text=Sponsors").click();
  await expect(page).toHaveURL("https://nordicjs.com/2022/#sponsors--270766"); // throws here
});

Describe the bug

The code above did work in 1.25 but after upgrading to 1.26 it breaks at the toHaveURL assertion. Even when setting the expect timeout quite high, it fails with

Call log:

• expect.toHaveURL with timeout 15000ms
• waiting for selector “:root”

and it gets reflected as 97ms inside the html report (step).

It seems firefox only and load event changes related, cc @dgozman

[kblok]

I think I’m getting an issue related to this. But I wasn’t able to isolate it yet. It looks like a click that triggers navigation is being resolved earlier than before. I have some legacy code that was doing something like:

await page.locator("text=Sponsors").click();
await page.waitForLoadState("networkidle"); // I don't like that `waitForLoadState` either. 

That code is working on 1.25, it waits for the navigation and then for the networkidle, but on 1.26, waitForLoadState resolves immediately because the navigation didn’t occur yet.

[mxschmitt]

I can verify that this issue is fixed on npm i -D @playwright/test@next or wait for 1.28.

Please try to repro on @next or wait for 1.28.