CodeceptJS 4.x: pause() doesn't stop at the right place — it pauses after subsequent steps instead of before them #5652

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1. mirao commented on Jun 30, 2026

   

   mirao

   on Jun 30, 2026

   Last edited by mirao

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   Root cause & suggested fix

   The regression comes from the global pause being turned into an async function with a lazy dynamic import in lib/globals.js:

   global.pause = async (...args) => {
     const pauseModule = await import('./pause.js')
     return (pauseModule.default || pauseModule)(...args)
   }

   A scenario body runs synchronously to build the recorder queue — every I.* call does recorder.add(...) synchronously via recordStep. But because pause is now async, pause() returns at the await import(...) and its recorder.add('Start new session', ...) is deferred to a later microtask, after the rest of the synchronous body (the following steps) has already been queued.

   DEBUG=codeceptjs:recorder trace for the minimal repro shows it clearly:

   Queued | amOnPage
   Queued | see: "Example Domain"     <-- whole body queued synchronously
   Running | amOnPage
   Queued | Start new session         <-- pause inserted AFTER `see`
   

   So the pause lands at the tail of the queue and stops after the following steps. This also explains why await pause() works as a workaround: awaiting suspends the synchronous body until pause's recorder.add has run, so the next steps are queued after it.

   Suggested fix

   initCodeceptGlobals is already async, so resolve the module up front and assign the real function directly (synchronous at call time):

   const pauseModule = await import('./pause.js')
   global.pause = pauseModule.default || pauseModule

   With this, ordering is restored:

   Queued | amOnPage
   Queued | Start new session         <-- between the two steps
   Queued | see: "Example Domain"
   Running | amOnPage -> Start new session -> Interactive shell started   (before `see`)
   

   I've verified this fix locally via patch-package against codeceptjs@4.0.8 and pause() now stops in the right place without await.

   Note: global.within and global.session use the same async-lazy-import pattern, so they share the same latent hazard (normally masked because they're awaited).

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2. DavertMik

   added a commit that references this issue on Jul 5, 2026

   fix(pause): assign global.pause synchronously so it stops at the righ…

   ...

   45ad5b0
3. DavertMik

   closed this as completedin #5653on Jul 5, 2026