`npx playwright install-deps chrome` is the third-most-common e2e failure:
three of the last twenty-five Playwright runs died on it, taking the whole
aggregate gate with them. The step is not installing anything CI needs.
The runner's Chrome is an apt package, so apt has already satisfied every
library Playwright lists — the log shows each one "already the newest version".
All `install-deps` adds are decorative CJK/Thai/Cyrillic font packages, ~21MB
pulled from azure.archive.ubuntu.com by seven jobs on every PR. No CI assertion
depends on them: the only spec that screenshots gates its comparison behind
`E2E_VISUAL_SNAPSHOTS`, which no workflow sets, and no baselines are committed.
Keep the install, but demote it. `google-chrome --version` becomes its own
fatal step so a genuinely missing browser still fails loudly and immediately,
while the font install retries with a per-attempt cap and degrades to a warning.
The Redis install in the list_changed job stays fatal — that one is required.
