An error in the Chromium browser engine caused extensions to stop working for Google Chrome users.
Jói Sigurdsson, founder and CEO of CrankWheel Screen Sharing, was one of the first to identify this problem. He says it affects about 3% to 5% of users of certain extensions.
Sigurdsson’s entry in the Chromium error report reads: “Event handlers registered via chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener should be sent to when the user clicks the browser action button/icon.”
For users affected by the bug, it means that buttons on certain extensions become unresponsive.
Google Chrome: Bugs, Glitches and Errors
CrankWheel Screen Sharing users first started notifying the company about the error on April 10, 2022. It’s unclear when it first became an issue, but the bug appears to have been introduced with Chrome 100.
The company’s initial response was to disable and re-enable the extension, which initially appeared to work. However, when the same error occurred on Sigurdsson’s computer, he was able to send screen recordings and more information to Chromium.
Other extensions that use the same browser Action API include password managers – Norton Password Manager and LastPass – and a pair of Google’s own creations: the Picture in Picture extension and Google Mail Checker. Sigurdsson believes that these can also be subject to problematic dysfunction.
The Iceland-based company has published a file Work at Upwork (Opens in a new tab) Last week he offered $35-$150 an hour for two days initially, hoping that a “Chromium C++ expert” [can] Dig into the error and hope to resolve it.”
A pair of $4,000 bonuses can also be grabbed. One is the ability to constantly repeat the problem, which happens on “macOS and Windows at least” and the other is for an actual fix.
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