E2E: reload the page after the log in process completes, but before the test steps take over.

[worldomonation]

Related to #70674.

Proposed Changes

This PR adds a reload step after the log in process, but before the test steps take over, ostensibly to reset the state before the tests begin as a workaround to the page crash. This workaround was suggested in microsoft/playwright#18137.

The original issue describes a situation where the teardown code makes an attempt to screenshot the page, but is unable to do so because the page has already crashed. After some investigations, we find that a comment on microsoft/playwright closely (but not exactly) describes our issue.

During the login process for browsers controlled by Playwright:

• the log in process is initiated, then the form is submitted.
• Calypso authenticates and redirects the page multiple times.
• finally, the page is redirected to the original endpoint they were supposed to land at.
• test steps take over from here and redirect the page to the intended endpoint.

This all occurs with milliseconds to spare because Playwright is able to act on pages several orders of magnitude faster than humans can. The hypothesis is that this is what's causing the eventual page crash.

The proposed idea is to insert a state-resetting reload call between the third and fourth steps to "reset" the state. This way, the test steps are not attempt to execute code on a log in process that has not yet fully completed.

Testing Instructions

Ensure the following build configurations are passing:

• Calypso E2E (desktop)
• Calypso E2E (mobile)
• Unit Tests
• Code Style

I've also ran the proposed changes under a "stress test" of 100 iterations or 20 minutes of execution time, whichever comes first. The idea is to run most of the E2E specs in a single build, repeatedly, in the hopes that a problem either arises (in which case the fix has not worked) or does not arise (in which case the fix has high confidence of working).

For this PR, I ran multiple iterations, first with a limited set of specs and then gradually adding more.

First iteration - 15 test steps.

Second iteration - 15 test steps.

Third iteration - 48 test steps.

Fourth iteration - 89 test steps.

So far, through all iterations the crashing issue has not once cropped up.

Pre-merge Checklist

• Has the general commit checklist been followed? (PCYsg-hS-p2)
• Have you written new tests for your changes?
• Have you tested the feature in Simple (P9HQHe-k8-p2), Atomic (P9HQHe-jW-p2), and self-hosted Jetpack sites (PCYsg-g6b-p2)?
• Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?
• Have you used memoizing on expensive computations? More info in Memoizing with create-selector and Using memoizing selectors and Our Approach to Data
• Have we added the "[Status] String Freeze" label as soon as any new strings were ready for translation (p4TIVU-5Jq-p2)?
• For changes affecting Jetpack: Have we added the "[Status] Needs Privacy Updates" label if this pull request changes what data or activity we track or use (p4TIVU-ajp-p2)?

[github-actions]

Calypso Live (direct link)

https://calypso.live?image=registry.a8c.com/calypso/app:build-68084

Jetpack Cloud live (direct link)

https://calypso.live?image=registry.a8c.com/calypso/app:build-68084&env=jetpack

[matticbot]

This PR does not affect the size of JS and CSS bundles shipped to the user's browser.

Generated by performance advisor bot at iscalypsofastyet.com.