:waves: As part of &22879+, I've been finding digging up a lot of information on flakes; especially "quiet" ones that get pass on automatic retry. They don't fail a pipeline and so they can go under the radar, but they lead to longer overall pipeline times, and sometimes _do_ fail pipelines when they fail on retry. In the three months 2026-05-24 – 2026-08-24, `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb` has had 320 pass-on-retry flakes, and 70 fail-on-retry (pipeline-failing) flakes. Five examples in the `list settings > boards setting sidebar` context have 319/320 of the pass-on-retries, and 90% of them happened last week; they're still occurring on `master` pipelines this week. The main exception is a `StaleElementReferenceError`, with other timeouts on `.js-board-settings-sidebar`, `.gl-drawer-close-button`, and a disabled `Apply` button: the settings sidebar/drawer is being re-rendered underneath interactions, invalidating references. It also appears that a low-rate version of the same stale-element issue was happening (1–5/week) since late June; something merged around 2026-08-18 that made it happen much more reliably. ## Related issues - #435446+ - gitlab-org/quality/test-failure-issues#6600+ - gitlab-org/quality/test-failure-issues#2980+ ## Active flaking examples (last event on/after 2026-08-03) Below is data collated by LLM, should it be helpful. ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:5:1:3:4:1]` - name: Project issue boards list settings when license is available when boards setting sidebar is open when user hits enter updates the max issue count wip limit - flake events: 70 (11 on master pipelines); active 2026-06-29 → 2026-08-24 (7 weeks) - recent weekly: 07-06: 4, 07-27: 1, 08-03: 1, 08-10: 2, 08-17: 60, 08-24: 1 - exceptions: `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError']` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=138.0.7204.183); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=151.0.7922.108); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:5:1:3:3:1]` - name: Project issue boards list settings when license is available when boards setting sidebar is open when user off clicks does not update the max issue count wip limit and remains in edit mode - flake events: 67 (15 on master pipelines); active 2026-07-06 → 2026-08-17 (5 weeks) - recent weekly: 07-06: 1, 07-20: 1, 07-27: 1, 08-10: 1, 08-17: 63 - exceptions: `['Capybara::ElementNotFound']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError']` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=138.0.7204.183); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` - message sample: `Unable to find css ".js-board-settings-sidebar" Timeout (30s) reached while running a waiting Capybara finder.` ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:5:1:3:3:2:1]` - name: Project issue boards list settings when license is available when boards setting sidebar is open when user off clicks When user sets max issue count to 0 and off clicks does not update the max issue c - flake events: 66 (18 on master pipelines); active 2026-06-29 → 2026-08-17 (6 weeks) - recent weekly: 06-29: 2, 07-06: 2, 07-20: 1, 07-27: 1, 08-03: 5, 08-17: 55 - exceptions: `['Capybara::ElementNotFound','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']`; `['Capybara::ElementNotFound']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError']` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=138.0.7204.183); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` - message sample: `Unable to find css "[data-testid='board-list']:nth-child(2)" Timeout (30s) reached while running a waiting Capybara finder. Consider using a non-waiting finder. See https://www.cloudbees.com/blog/faster-rails-tests` ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:5:1:3:2:1]` - name: Project issue boards list settings when license is available when boards setting sidebar is open when the user is editing a wip limit and clicks close does not update the max issue count wip limit - flake events: 65 (13 on master pipelines); active 2026-07-27 → 2026-08-17 (4 weeks) - recent weekly: 07-27: 2, 08-03: 1, 08-10: 2, 08-17: 60 - exceptions: `['Capybara::ElementNotFound']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError']` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=138.0.7204.183); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` - message sample: `Unable to find css ".gl-drawer-close-button" Timeout (30s) reached while running a waiting Capybara finder.` ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:5:1:3:1:1]` - name: Project issue boards list settings when license is available when boards setting sidebar is open when user clicks Remove Limit sets max issue count to zero - flake events: 51 (11 on master pipelines); active 2026-06-29 → 2026-08-24 (5 weeks) - recent weekly: 06-29: 1, 07-13: 1, 07-20: 2, 08-17: 46, 08-24: 1 - exceptions: `['Capybara::ElementNotFound']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']`; `['Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError']` - message sample: `stale element reference: stale element not found in the current frame (Session info: chrome=138.0.7204.183); For documentation on this error, please visit: https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/troubleshooting/errors#staleelementreferenceexception` - message sample: `Unable to find button "Apply" that is not disabled Timeout (30s) reached while running a waiting Capybara finder.` ### `ee/spec/features/boards/boards_spec.rb[1:1:1]` - name: Project issue boards with group and reporter can edit board name - flake events: 1 (0 on master pipelines); active 2026-08-17 → 2026-08-17 (1 weeks) - recent weekly: 08-17: 1 - exceptions: `['RSpec::Expectations::ExpectationNotMetError','BrowserConsoleHelpers::BrowserConsoleError']` - message sample: `expected to find text "board1-Test" in "Skip to main content Homepage group5 Project-26 Name Issue Boards Search or go to… / 0 0 0 Sidney Jones41 user’s menu Primary navigation Project P Project-26 Name Pinned Members Work items 0 Pipelines More features Manage Plan Work items 0 Issue boards Mil`