diff --git a/test/functional/apps/context/_context_navigation.js b/test/functional/apps/context/_context_navigation.js
index 5acc14330832ce..52d7891887708b 100644
--- a/test/functional/apps/context/_context_navigation.js
+++ b/test/functional/apps/context/_context_navigation.js
@@ -17,12 +17,8 @@
  * under the License.
  */
 
-import expect from '@kbn/expect';
-
-const TEST_COLUMN_NAMES = ['@message'];
 const TEST_FILTER_COLUMN_NAMES = [
   ['extension', 'jpg'],
-  ['geo.src', 'IN'],
   [
     'agent',
     'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/534.24 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.50 Safari/534.24',
@@ -30,38 +26,41 @@ const TEST_FILTER_COLUMN_NAMES = [
 ];
 
 export default function ({ getService, getPageObjects }) {
+  const retry = getService('retry');
   const browser = getService('browser');
   const docTable = getService('docTable');
   const PageObjects = getPageObjects(['common', 'context', 'discover', 'timePicker']);
 
   describe('context link in discover', function contextSize() {
     before(async function () {
+      await PageObjects.timePicker.setDefaultAbsoluteRangeViaUiSettings();
       await PageObjects.common.navigateToApp('discover');
-      await PageObjects.timePicker.setDefaultAbsoluteRange();
-      await Promise.all(
-        TEST_COLUMN_NAMES.map((columnName) =>
-          PageObjects.discover.clickFieldListItemAdd(columnName)
-        )
-      );
       for (const [columnName, value] of TEST_FILTER_COLUMN_NAMES) {
         await PageObjects.discover.clickFieldListItem(columnName);
         await PageObjects.discover.clickFieldListPlusFilter(columnName, value);
       }
     });
+    after(async () => {
+      await PageObjects.timePicker.resetDefaultAbsoluteRangeViaUiSettings();
+    });
 
     it('should go back after loading', async function () {
-      // navigate to the context view
-      await docTable.clickRowToggle({ rowIndex: 0 });
-      await (await docTable.getRowActions({ rowIndex: 0 }))[0].click();
-      await PageObjects.context.waitUntilContextLoadingHasFinished();
-      await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
-      await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
-      await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
-      await PageObjects.context.waitUntilContextLoadingHasFinished();
-      await browser.goBack();
-      await PageObjects.discover.waitForDocTableLoadingComplete();
-      const hitCount = await PageObjects.discover.getHitCount();
-      expect(hitCount).to.be('522');
+      await retry.waitFor('user navigating to context and returning to discover', async () => {
+        // navigate to the context view
+        const initialHitCount = await PageObjects.discover.getHitCount();
+        await docTable.clickRowToggle({ rowIndex: 0 });
+        const rowActions = await docTable.getRowActions({ rowIndex: 0 });
+        await rowActions[0].click();
+        await PageObjects.context.waitUntilContextLoadingHasFinished();
+        await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
+        await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
+        await PageObjects.context.clickSuccessorLoadMoreButton();
+        await PageObjects.context.waitUntilContextLoadingHasFinished();
+        await browser.goBack();
+        await PageObjects.discover.waitForDocTableLoadingComplete();
+        const hitCount = await PageObjects.discover.getHitCount();
+        return initialHitCount === hitCount;
+      });
     });
   });
 }