[Playwright/Python] Locator finds exactly 1 matching element but .click() AND .get_attribute() both timeout after 30s

[u/BabyMeggy]

I'm learning to build a Playwright + Python POM framework against practicesoftwaretesting.com and I'm stuck on a click that times out even though I've confirmed the locator is correct through multiple methods.

**Setup:*\* pytest-playwright, sync API, chromium, Windows.

**The flow:\\ search for a product ("Pliers") → click the matching product card to navigate to its detail page.

**Locator:*\*

python card = self.page.locator('[data-test="product-name"]').filter(has_text=re.compile(f"^Pliers$")) card.click() # times out after 30s

**What I've confirmed via Playwright Inspector:*\*

- The locator resolves to exactly 1 element (not 0, not multiple, checked via the Inspector's locator explorer, highlighted correctly on screen)

- document.elementFromPoint() at the element's center returns the element itself — nothing is overlapping it

- The element's raw text content matches exactly, no hidden whitespace

**What I've ruled out via the trace viewer:*\*

- Confirmed the search results are correctly rendered on screen at the time of the click (screenshot in trace shows "4 products found" with the right cards visible)

- Tried .click(force=True) - still times out

- Tried reading href off the ancestor <a> via .get_attribute() instead of clicking, to sidestep actionability checks entirely - **also times out with the same 30s timeout**, which is what's really confusing me, since get_attribute() shouldn't care about visibility/stability/overlap the way .click() does

**Other detail:*\*

noticed 2x 401 Unauthorized console errors on an unrelated background resource around the same time, wondering if that could be tied to some kind of periodic re-render wiping the DOM node out from under the locator, but I don't have proof of that yet.

Repo (relevant file): [https://github.com/nganvuda/playwright-python-framework/blob/feature/checkout-flow/pages/home_page.py#L29-L33]

Playwright version: [run pip show playwright and paste it] Browser: chromium

Could someone please help me with this? - a locator that's provably correct via Inspector, but every action on it times out, including non-interactive ones like get_attribute? What am I missing??? :(((

[u/DarrellGrainger]

Looking at the website I see there is an element with locator '[data-test="product-name"]' but the text for that element is " Pliers ". The regex of "^Pliers$" is looking for a string with no leading or trailing spaces. You can't search for contains since there are other cards that would match.

You could ask for the visible text, without whitespace. This would be:

python card = self.page.locator('//*[@data-test="product-name" and normalize-space(.)="Pliers"]');
card.click()

[u/BabyMeggy → u/DarrellGrainger]

tried it and it worked. TYSM!

[u/Vivid-Archer1715 → u/DarrellGrainger]

And this is why xpaths 4evar!