Data Persistence Issues

Test data issues cause failures that look like real bugs — a field is empty when it should be filled, or a record that should exist isn't found. This page helps diagnose and fix them.

<from_test_data> returns undefined

The step tries to read a value that was never generated.

Symptoms:

Error: testData['name'] is undefined
Expected: "John Doe"
Received: undefined

Causes:

1. The <gen_test_data> step ran in a different scenario — page.testData is scenario-scoped. If Scenario A generated a name and Scenario B tries to read it, it won't be there.

   Fix: Use <gen_test_data> and <from_test_data> within the same scenario.

2. The field name doesn't match — | Full Name | <gen_test_data> | generates a value under the key "Full Name". If the validation step uses a different label, the key lookup fails.

   Fix: Ensure the field name in the <gen_test_data> row and the <from_test_data> row are identical.

3. The interaction step failed silently — if the fill step threw an error that was caught, testData was never populated.

   Fix: Check for selector failures in the same scenario (see Selector Failures).

Predata file not found (workflow phases)

Error: Predata file not found: e2e-tests/test-data/booking.json after 30s

Causes:

1. Phase 0 (precondition) didn't run — the precondition scenario was skipped or failed before writing the file.

   Fix: Run just the precondition phase first and check for errors:

   npx playwright test --project precondition
   

2. Scope name mismatch — Phase 0 saves under "booking" but Phase 1 loads from "bookingworkflow".

   Fix: Check both the save step and the load step use the same scope name.

3. The file exists but is stale — the file was written by a previous test run with different data.

   Fix: Delete and re-run:

   rm e2e-tests/test-data/booking.json
   npx playwright test --project precondition
   

Predata file has wrong content

The file exists and loads, but the values don't match what was created.

Causes:

1. The precondition ran multiple times — the file was overwritten by a later run with different generated values.

   Fix: Use the one-time guard pattern:

   Given predata does not exist for scope "booking"
   

   This skips the scenario if the file already exists, preventing overwrites.

2. Worker timing — a consumer started before the precondition fully wrote the file.

   Fix: This should not happen because Playwright waits for the precondition project to finish before starting workflow-consumers. If it is happening, check that the dependencies field is set correctly in playwright.config.ts.

Auth state missing across phases

Error: storageState file not found: e2e-tests/test-data/workflow-auth.json

The workflow uses a saved auth state but it was never created or was deleted.

Fix: The auth state is created by the setup project (Phase 0 of every run). Ensure setup ran successfully:

npx playwright test --project setup

If setup failed due to auth issues, see Auth Issues.

featureDataCache empty in second scenario

Feature-level cache (shared across scenarios in one .feature file) appears empty in Scenario 2.

Cause: The BeforeAll / AfterAll hooks that initialize the feature page are not executing — often because the test file has fullyParallel: true at the file level, which creates separate worker contexts.

Fix: Add // @ts-expect-error if needed, but first check that global-hooks.js is being imported by your feature. Features in @-prefixed directories must import from fixtures.js — the global hooks are attached there.

test-data/ directory doesn't exist

ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'e2e-tests/test-data/booking.json'

The directory is created on first write, but if the precondition fails before writing, the directory may not exist.

Fix:

mkdir -p e2e-tests/test-data

Or re-run the precondition — a successful run creates the directory automatically.

Resetting all test data

To start fresh (clear all generated test data and auth state):

rm -rf e2e-tests/test-data/
rm -rf e2e-tests/playwright/.auth/

The next full test run will regenerate everything.