The issue likely comes from a mismatch between how your Electron app handles image imports like .png files, and how Playwright (running in a Node.js environment) handles them — which is usually not at all.

Here are a few things you might try:

You mentioned trying a separate config, that is a solid direction. Make sure that config handles assets like images the same way your main app does. You might also want to ensure your test environment is picking up the right Webpack aliases and rules.
If you're not relying on actual images during tests, just mock them out. For example, if you're using something like Jest for unit tests, you can set up moduleNameMapper to return a dummy string for image imports. For Playwright, you can stub global objects or intercept imports via a preprocessing step..

It is a common issue when your app uses Webpack, but your test environment doesn't process files the same way. hope this all will help you. thanks