Playwright: strict mode violation: locator resolved to N elements

Locators in Playwright are strict: any action that targets a single element (click, fill, check, hover, textContent and so on) requires the locator to match exactly one element. When it matches two or more, Playwright refuses to guess and throws immediately rather than clicking the first match. The number in the message is how many elements matched at the moment of the action.

The error is helpful. Below the headline Playwright lists every match, and for each one prints an aka line with a more specific locator that would uniquely identify it. Copying the right aka suggestion is often the whole fix.

What is not wrong: the page and timing are fine; the element you want is present. The problem is purely that the locator is ambiguous. Methods that are meant to work on many elements, such as locator.count() and locator.all(), do not trigger strictness.

// Ambiguous: two elements say "Sign in"
// await page.getByText('Sign in').click();

// Unique
await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Sign in', exact: true }).click();

// Scoped to one row of a table
await page.getByRole('row')
  .filter({ hasText: 'Invoice 42' })
  .getByRole('button', { name: 'Edit' })
  .click();

Write locators the way a user would describe the element: its role, its name and the region it sits in. Chain from a container (a dialog, form, row or main) instead of searching the whole page. Treat .first() as a smell: it hides strictness errors that would otherwise tell you the page changed. Adding stable data-testid attributes to repeated components removes most ambiguity for pages you control.