[Bug]: TargetClosedError when calling path() on Download after page.waitForDownload()

[sascha-luck]

Version

1.61.0

Steps to reproduce

after switching to Version 1.61.0 (from 1.57.0) I get following error: com.microsoft.playwright.impl.TargetClosedError: Target page, context or browser has been closed

the code snippet is:

		Download download = page.waitForDownload(new Page.WaitForDownloadOptions().setTimeout(120_000), () -> locator.first().click(new Locator.ClickOptions().setTimeout(120_000)));
		final List<String> stringList;
		try (InputStream inputStream = download.createReadStream()) {
			// do something with the inputStream
		} catch (IOException e) {
			throw new PlaywrightException("error processing downloaded pdf",e);
		}

Expected behavior

I expect that after downloading i can access the downloaded file to do the needed checks

Actual behavior

com.microsoft.playwright.impl.TargetClosedError: Target page, context or browser has been closed

	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.PageImpl$WaitablePageClose.get(PageImpl.java:1516)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.WaitableRace.get(WaitableRace.java:46)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.WaitableRace.get(WaitableRace.java:46)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.runUntil(ChannelOwner.java:146)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.FrameImpl.waitForLoadStateImpl(FrameImpl.java:848)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.FrameImpl.waitForLoadStateImpl(FrameImpl.java:833)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.PageImpl.lambda$waitForLoadState$14(PageImpl.java:1462)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.WaitForEventLogger.get(WaitForEventLogger.java:50)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.withWaitLogging(ChannelOwner.java:84)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.PageImpl.lambda$waitForLoadState$15(PageImpl.java:1461)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.lambda$withTitle$0(ChannelOwner.java:90)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.withTitle(ChannelOwner.java:98)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.withTitle(ChannelOwner.java:89)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.PageImpl.waitForLoadState(PageImpl.java:1460)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.Page.waitForLoadState(Page.java:7998)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.Page.waitForLoadState(Page.java:8026)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ListenerCollection.notify(ListenerCollection.java:45)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.BrowserContextImpl.handleEvent(BrowserContextImpl.java:789)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.Connection.dispatch(Connection.java:307)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.Connection.processOneMessage(Connection.java:222)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.runUntil(ChannelOwner.java:144)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.Connection.sendMessage(Connection.java:132)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.sendMessage(ChannelOwner.java:132)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ChannelOwner.sendMessage(ChannelOwner.java:122)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ArtifactImpl.pathAfterFinished(ArtifactImpl.java:75)
	at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.DownloadImpl.path(DownloadImpl.java:74)

Additional context

No response

Environment

• Browser: Firefox
• Java Version: [21]
• Maven Version: [3.9.6]

[sascha-luck]

also checked other versions

• works wirh 1.58.0
• doesn't work with 1.59.0 --> seems that the change was there

[alaahong]

Seems the issue is there for a long time. It might be coming since some client part changes since 1.59, not Java part.
Anyway, raise #1953 to fix this.

[yury-s]

The stack trace shows the error doesn't come from the download itself — it originates in a context.onPage(...) listener (not shown in your snippet) that calls page.waitForLoadState():

at com.microsoft.playwright.Page.waitForLoadState(Page.java:8026)
at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.ListenerCollection.notify(ListenerCollection.java:45)
at com.microsoft.playwright.impl.BrowserContextImpl.handleEvent(BrowserContextImpl.java:789)

What likely happens: clicking the download link makes Firefox open a transient page which closes as soon as the download starts. Your onPage listener calls waitForLoadState() on it, which throws TargetClosedError when the page closes. Since the Java client dispatches events synchronously, the exception propagates into the unrelated download.createReadStream() call that happened to be processing messages at that moment.

As a workaround, wrap the listener body in try/catch (or skip pages that are already closed).

Could you share a self-contained repro including the listener registration code? That would help us pin down what changed in 1.59.0 — nothing changed in the Java client code in that area, so it's likely a timing change in the bundled driver, and we'd need a repro to verify.

[sascha-luck]

i finally managed to push the small project
https://github.com/sascha-luck/pw_java_issue_1952
Yury Semikhatsky (@yury-s) - i added you. if someone else needs access pls write me

[yury-s]

Thanks for the repro, I was able to reproduce this with Firefox.

The error comes from the onPage listener in PageCallback, which calls page.waitForLoadState() on every new page. Clicking the download button opens a transient popup that Firefox closes as soon as the download starts. Since the Firefox roll in 1.59 the popup closes before its load event fires, so waitForLoadState() throws TargetClosedError. In 1.58 the popup happened to load first. The JS client fails the same way here, so this is a browser timing change, not a client regression.

It shows up in download.path() because the Java client dispatches events synchronously from whichever API call is processing messages at the time, so an exception thrown by a listener propagates out of that call. This is a known limitation of the synchronous API.

The fix is to not let the listener throw:

browserContext.onPage(page -> {
  try {
    page.waitForLoadState();
  } catch (PlaywrightException e) {
    // Popup closed before loading, e.g. a download tab.
  }
});