diff --git a/e2e/specs/08-browser-chaos/offline-network.spec.ts b/e2e/specs/08-browser-chaos/offline-network.spec.ts
index 653484c..2af1a70 100644
--- a/e2e/specs/08-browser-chaos/offline-network.spec.ts
+++ b/e2e/specs/08-browser-chaos/offline-network.spec.ts
@@ -61,7 +61,10 @@ test.describe('Browser chaos — network', () => {
     const g = await guest('Throttled');
 
     let attempts = 0;
-    await page.route('**/api/v1/feed', async (route) => {
+    // Match /api/v1/feed with or without a query string (the app requests
+    // `/feed?limit=20`), but NOT /api/v1/feed/delta. A plain `**/api/v1/feed` glob
+    // fails to match the query-string URL, so this route never fired before.
+    await page.route(/\/api\/v1\/feed(\?|$)/, async (route) => {
       attempts++;
       await route.fulfill({
         status: 429,
@@ -73,8 +76,13 @@ test.describe('Browser chaos — network', () => {
     await signIn(page, g);
     await page.goto('/feed');
 
-    // Wait until the retry count stops climbing instead of sleeping a fixed 3s: a
-    // well-behaved client surfaces the 429 and stops, so the count settles quickly;
+    // First make sure the throttled endpoint was actually hit — otherwise the
+    // stabilize-poll below could settle at attempts=0 (feed request not yet fired)
+    // and pass vacuously without ever exercising the 429 path.
+    await expect.poll(() => attempts, { timeout: 8_000 }).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(1);
+
+    // Then wait until the retry count stops climbing instead of sleeping a fixed 3s:
+    // a well-behaved client surfaces the 429 and stops, so the count settles quickly;
     // a retry storm would keep incrementing and never stabilize (→ this poll times
     // out and the test fails, which is the outcome we want).
     let prev = -1;