Possible bug with auto-advance and text wait tags?

[AVNSnax]

(Ren'Py 8.0.2) I have an ATL background that executes over 6 seconds, zooming in on a portion of the image. I am trying to display a sequence of dialog text while the zoom is happening. It works fine in normal mode, but when you turn on auto-advance the waits disappear. For example:

Code: Select all

python:
    waitLength = 3.0 # waitLength = 100.0
    strToSay = "This . . . {{w={}}}is how . . . {{w={}}}it works!".format(waitLength, waitLength)
    renpy.say(character.s, strToSay)

It doesn't matter what waitLength is; it could be 3 seconds or 100; the wait is over as soon as Ren'Py calculates how long it would take to read the preceding text, which in this case is fairly short. I was trying to get the dialog to stretch until the background zoom had completed. I would expect it to operate like this:

This . . . (wait for 3 seconds)is how . . . (wait for 3 seconds)it works!

I'm not savvy enough with the system yet to code a workaround. Does anyone have any suggestions, please?