toBeDisplayed() ignores waitForTimeout configuration, breaking timeout-critical tests

[KlementMultiverse]

Problem

toBeDisplayed() does not respect WebdriverIO's global waitForTimeout or waitForInterval settings. When a test configures a custom timeout via wdio.conf.js or browser.overrideTimeout(), the matcher still uses hardcoded defaults, causing tests to either fail prematurely or hang when elements load slowly on CI/CD pipelines.

This was reported in #2020 but remains unresolved.

Why this matters

• Tests fail inconsistently across environments (local vs CI) due to different network latency
• Users must work around this by wrapping assertions in browser.pause(ms), which is fragile and masks timing issues
• The matcher violates the principle that expect-webdriverio should behave consistently with WebdriverIO's configuration
• Other matchers like toBeEnabled() and toHaveText() likely have the same issue

Current behavior

// wdio.conf.js sets 15s timeout for slow CI
export const config = {
  waitForTimeout: 15000,
  waitForInterval: 500
}

// Test still fails at ~3s because toBeDisplayed() ignores config
await expect($('button')).toBeDisplayed()
// Actual: timeout after 3s (hardcoded default)
// Expected: timeout after 15s (from config)

What good looks like

toBeDisplayed() should read the timeout from:

1. Method options parameter (highest priority): await expect($el).toBeDisplayed({ timeout: 20000 })
2. Browser configuration (fallback): browser.config.waitForTimeout
3. Hardcoded default (final fallback): 3000ms

The implementation should pass timeout and interval through to WebdriverIO's internal wait mechanism instead of hardcoding values.

Implementation path

The fix likely requires:

• Modifying matcher setup in src/matchers/ to extract browser.config.waitForTimeout and browser.config.waitForInterval
• Updating wait logic to accept timeout/interval as parameters instead of constants
• Ensuring all element matchers (toBeDisplayed, toBeEnabled, toBeClickable, etc.) apply the same logic
• Adding integration test that verifies timeout behavior with different wdio.conf.js configurations

Related

• toBeDisplayed() not respecting Webdriverio's waitForTimeout or waitForInterval #2020 (original report)
• Affects all element state matchers that currently ignore configuration

---

Contributed by Klement Gunndu

[dprevost-LMI]

Duplicate of #2020 and already fixed by #2023, still unresolved since the release is not done yet.

[KlementMultiverse]

Withdrawing this issue. Apologies for any inconvenience.

[dprevost-LMI]

Thanks, all good!