That's a good suggestion, but no joy.
I removed and re-installed tiddlywiki with npm. I created a new wiki, so I've got a clean
tiddlywiki.info, no content and no plugins. If I open or close a tiddler from an already-open wiki while wifi is down, the status icon turns red and start spinning its arrows, and Network Error opens (or counts upward) at the rate of about 1 per 5 seconds. I've tested with all extensions disabled too. Chrome version is 81.0.4044.129.
Happens with Safari and Firefox. (I was mistaken when I said it did not happen with Firefox in my earlier post.)
Pretty much makes node.js TW unusable in offline mode for me. More importantly, it gets me in trouble with my wife! ;-)