Why can Cypress dislike chaining cy.first() or cy.find()?

[alexeyr-ci]

Our Cypress version is 12.17.4. When updating an unrelated dependency some Cypress tests start failing, but the strange thing is the error message:

CypressError: Timed out retrying after 60050ms: `cy.first()` failed because the page updated as a result of this command, but you tried to continue the command chain. The subject is no longer attached to the DOM, and Cypress cannot requery the page after commands such as `cy.first()`.

Or in different tests it can be cy.contains() or cy.find().

But my understanding is that this shouldn't happen in Cypress 12: all of these are queries and can be chained. Or is there a good reason for this to happen? I'll post this to issues if it's confirmed as a bug, but may not be able to provide a minimized reproduction: it's a very large and complex project.

The stack trace is

    at isAttached (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:144393:58)
    at validateType (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:144263:9)
    at Object.isType (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:144298:7)
    at Array.<anonymous> (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:134720:24)
    at $Cy.getSubjectFromChain (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:138069:34)
    at Array.<anonymous> (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:131412:24)
    at $Cy.getSubjectFromChain (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:138069:34)
    at _actionability__WEBPACK_IMPORTED_MODULE_6__.default.verify.subjectFn (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:111560:51)
    at retryActionability (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:112242:27)
    at tryCatcher (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1807:23)
    at Promise.attempt.Promise.try (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:4315:29)
    at whenStable (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:143192:68)
    at <unknown> (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:143133:14)
    at tryCatcher (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1807:23)
    at Promise._settlePromiseFromHandler (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1519:31)
    at Promise._settlePromise (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1576:18)
    at Promise._settlePromise0 (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1621:10)
    at Promise._settlePromises (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1701:18)
    at Promise._fulfill (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:1645:18)
    at <unknown> (http://my.project.localhost:5002/__cypress/runner/cypress_runner.js:5450:46)
From Your Spec Code:
    at Context.clickText (cypress/support/helpers.js:136:25)

where

export const getText = (text, exact = false) => {
  const textRegEx = exact ? veryExactMatchRegEx(text) : exactMatchRegEx(text);
  cy.contains(':visible', textRegEx)
    .should('be.visible').as('getText');
  return cy.get('@getText').first(); // This pattern combats DOM detachment issues
};

export const clickText = (text, options = {}) => {
  const { force, exact } = { ...{ exact: false, force: false }, ...options };
  getText(text, exact).as('textToClick');
  cy.get('@textToClick').click({ force }); // This pattern combats DOM detachment issues
};

(so you can see it's already partly switched to decrease chaining but I think that predates Cypress 12 and was working fine before). cypress/support/helpers.js::136:25 points to the click at the end of clickText.