Pages refreshing multiple times, preventing successful export

[thejohnnyhill]

Hi there,

I'm having the same issue described in Issue #18 where tests are running, auth is successful, the first page in files.json is opened, but then refreshes before the proper menu items can be clicked to initiate the download.

I've also run this headed via playwright, and seen the refreshes happening in real time. Sometimes it's three, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always at least one refresh that throws off the whole process. If I try to manually click the menu in the headed browser myself, it will usually refresh again as well.

I am also on an Org account, which I'm sure complicates troubleshooting. But I have disabled the "Open links in desktop app" setting, so that shouldn't be the issue here (as it seems was suspected in #18). I've followed the steps outlined in that issue to re-install the latest Chromium version as well.

I don't know if this is an issue with how the clicks are being handled (i.e., does it not know those elements are not actual links, and is trying to fire a navigation event), or if something more sinister is happening within Figma itself. But hoping you might have some insight into this, and be able to help me troubleshoot! Let me know if there's any other info I can provide.

Much appreciated in advance ✌️

[thejohnnyhill]

Couple of updates on this — after a couple more hours of testing, I can't seem to do anything to avoid this refreshing behavior. However, I confirmed it is Figma-specific; running the same tests on a different URL works as expected, with no refreshes occurring.

More interestingly, I noticed when running the tests in headed mode, that any user action in the headed browser would instantiate a refresh. Even once I removed the click events from download.spec.ts, any clicks, any keystrokes, even moving my cursor within the Figma page in the browser would cause a refresh.

I'm wondering if this is another of their anti-automation tactics? If so, it's maddeningly clever. I tried to install playwright-stealth to see if that could circumvent whatever's happening, but couldn't get it to work with the playwright installed as a dependency of this tool.

I'm at my limit on what I can spend trying to get this to work (probably could have manually saved most of the files I need by now 😂), but wanted to provide my thoughts and findings in hope they can help you find a workaround for this issue. Hope it helps.

[alexchantastic]

Thanks for all of this analysis! This is super helpful for tracking down the issue. It does seem like a different issue than the one presented in #18.

I wonder if it does have to do with an org account. Unfortunately, I only have access to a free and pro account to test with. Would you be willing to create a free account to see if there issue persists? I'm hoping that we can eliminate some environment-level variables.

I'm not sure if this is Figma's anti-automation system kicking in as there are likely better methods than using additional resources from constant page refreshes -- I do agree that it would be incredibly nefarious if it was though. 😆 I have been wanting to implement playwright-stealth so I will give that a go soon.

[thejohnnyhill]

Hmmm... you might be on to something. I ran the whole process with a personal account and everything ran perfectly! I even ran it in headed mode to see if I ran into the interaction issues in-browser, and nope. Downloads were quick and near-instant, no reloads.

You have a good point re: anti-automation (would be very wasteful indeed). But I'm failing to imagine why this would happen on org accounts specifically... Have you had confirmation of other org account users using the tool successfully?

Unfortunately I don't have access to this specific org account any more (hence the need for this tool 😅) so I won't be able to test on that end any further, but I hope this info has helped at least somewhat!

[alexchantastic]

Interesting! Thanks for the confirmation. Unfortunately, I can't say for certain that other org plan users are running into this problem. I will leave this issue open in hopes that we get another friendly user to confirm/deny.