fix: do not throw if location is an empty string (#16772)

* do not throw if location is an empty string

* add a test

packages/driver/cypress/integration/commands/location_spec.js

@@ -336,6 +336,20 @@ describe('src/cy/commands/location', () => {
       cy.location().should('have.property', 'pathname').and('match', /users/)
     })
 
+    // https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/16463
+    it('eventually returns a given key', function () {
+      cy.stub(cy, 'getRemoteLocation')
+      .onFirstCall().returns('')
+      .onSecondCall().returns({
+        pathname: '/my/path',
+      })
+
+      cy.location('pathname').should('equal', '/my/path')
+      .then(() => {
+        expect(cy.getRemoteLocation).to.have.been.calledTwice
+      })
+    })
+
     describe('assertion verification', () => {
       beforeEach(function () {
         cy.on('log:added', (attrs, log) => {

packages/driver/src/cy/commands/location.js

@@ -75,6 +75,14 @@ module.exports = (Commands, Cypress, cy) => {
       const getLocation = () => {
         const location = cy.getRemoteLocation()
 
+        if (location === '') {
+          // maybe the page's domain is "invisible" to us
+          // and we cannot get the location. Return null
+          // so the command keeps retrying, maybe there is
+          // a redirect that puts us on the domain we can access
+          return null
+        }
+
         return _.isString(key)
           // use existential here because we only want to throw
           // on null or undefined values (and not empty strings)

packages/driver/src/cy/location.js

@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ const create = (state) => {
 
         return location
       } catch (e) {
+        // it is possible we do not have access to the location
+        // for example, if the app has redirected to a 2nd domain
         return ''
       }
     },