Version: 1.8.0

Navigations

Playwright can navigate to URLs and handle navigations caused by page interactions. This guide covers common scenarios to wait for page navigations and loading to complete.

Navigation lifecycle#

Playwright splits the process of showing a new document in a page into navigation and loading.

Navigations can be initiated by changing the page URL or by interacting with the page (e.g., clicking a link). Navigation ends when response headers have been parsed and session history is updated. The navigation intent may be canceled, for example, on hitting an unresolved DNS address or transformed into a file download. Only after the navigation succeeds, page starts loading the document.

Loading covers getting the remaining response body over the network, parsing, executing the scripts and firing load events:

  • page.url is set to the new url
  • document content is loaded over network and parsed
  • page.on("domcontentloaded") event is fired
  • page executes some scripts and loads resources like stylesheets and images
  • page.on("load") event is fired
  • page executes dynamically loaded scripts
  • networkidle is fired when no new network requests are made for 500 ms

Scenarios initiated by browser UI#

Navigations can be initiated by changing the URL bar, reloading the page or going back or forward in session history.

Auto-wait#

Navigating to a URL auto-waits for the page to fire the load event. If the page does a client-side redirect before load, page.goto will auto-wait for the redirected page to fire the load event.

# Navigate the page
page.goto("https://example.com")

Custom wait#

Override the default behavior to wait until a specific event, like networkidle.

# Navigate and wait until network is idle
page.goto("https://example.com", wait_until="networkidle")

Wait for element#

In lazy-loaded pages, it can be useful to wait until an element is visible with page.wait_for_selector(selector, **kwargs). Alternatively, page interactions like page.click(selector, **kwargs) auto-wait for elements.

# Navigate and wait for element
page.goto("https://example.com")
page.wait_for_selector("text=example domain")
# Navigate and click element
# Click will auto-wait for the element
page.goto("https://example.com")
page.click("text=example domain")

API reference#

Scenarios initiated by page interaction#

In the scenarios below, page.click(selector, **kwargs) initiates a navigation and then waits for the navigation to complete.

Auto-wait#

By default, page.click(selector, **kwargs) will wait for the navigation step to complete. This can be combined with a page interaction on the navigated page which would auto-wait for an element.

# Click will auto-wait for navigation to complete
page.click("text=Login")
# Fill will auto-wait for element on navigated page
page.fill("#username", "John Doe")

Custom wait#

page.click can be combined with page.wait_for_load_state(**kwargs) to wait for a loading event.

page.click("button"); # Click triggers navigation
page.wait_for_load_state("networkidle"); # This waits for the "networkidle"

Wait for element#

In lazy-loaded pages, it can be useful to wait until an element is visible with page.wait_for_selector(selector, **kwargs). Alternatively, page interactions like page.click(selector, **kwargs) auto-wait for elements.

# Click triggers navigation
page.click("text=Login")
# Click will auto-wait for the element
page.wait_for_selector("#username", "John Doe")
# Click triggers navigation
page.click("text=Login")
# Fill will auto-wait for element
page.fill("#username", "John Doe")

Asynchronous navigation#

Clicking an element could trigger asynchronous processing before initiating the navigation. In these cases, it is recommended to explicitly call page.expect_navigation(**kwargs). For example:

  • Navigation is triggered from a setTimeout
  • Page waits for network requests before navigation
# Waits for the next navigation. Using Python context manager
# prevents a race condition between clicking and waiting for a navigation.
with page.expect_navigation():
# Triggers a navigation after a timeout
page.click("a")

Multiple navigations#

Clicking an element could trigger multiple navigations. In these cases, it is recommended to explicitly page.expect_navigation(**kwargs) to a specific url. For example:

  • Client-side redirects issued after the load event
  • Multiple pushes to history state
# Using Python context manager prevents a race condition
# between clicking and waiting for a navigation.
with page.expect_navigation(url="**/login"):
# Triggers a navigation with a script redirect
page.click("a")

Loading a popup#

When popup is opened, explicitly calling page.wait_for_load_state(**kwargs) ensures that popup is loaded to the desired state.

with page.expect_popup() as popup_info:
page.click('a[target="_blank"]') # Opens popup
popup = popup_info.value
popup.wait_for_load_state("load")

API reference#

Advanced patterns#

For pages that have complicated loading patterns, page.wait_for_function(expression, **kwargs) is a powerful and extensible approach to define a custom wait criteria.

page.goto("http://example.com")
page.wait_for_function("() => window.amILoadedYet()")
# Ready to take a screenshot, according to the page itself.
page.screenshot()

API reference#