Preloading fails when link remains hovered after navigation

Describe the bug

I have a carousel that navigates to the next page on click. When hovered, it preloads the next page as expected. However, if you click and keep the mouse over it, the next page does not preload.

This makes the first navigation of the carousel feel snappy, but the subsequent ones feel sluggish.

Even worse, if you stop hovering and then hover back over it, it still doesn’t preload. It only preloads again if you hover over a different link first and then return.

I can also add a video of the network tab if that would help.

Reproduction

I can’t open Chrome DevTools in WebContainers without the site glitching out, so I’ve also included a repo that can be cloned locally.
https://stackblitz.com/edit/sveltejs-kit-template-default-2plfyu1p?file=src%2Froutes%2Ftest%2F%5Bslug%5D%2F%2Bpage.svelte

https://github.com/Asguho/sveltejs-kit-template-default-akqbnubu

Logs

System Info

"svelte": "^5.25.0"

windows 11, google chrome

Severity

annoyance

Additional Information

No response

Start with the linked reproduction in src/routes/test/[slug]/+page.svelte and reproduce the carousel navigation while monitoring the network tab locally. Trace the hover preload behavior across navigation, mouse leave, and mouse re-entry. Done means the next page preloads again after navigation and after leaving and returning to the same link.