I am trying to create a chrome extension, but for some reasons, sometimes, the chrome.runtime object seems inplete, and a lot of methods are missing (including onMessage, which is the one I want).

It seems sometimes it works, sometimes not. I assumed it may be a time related issue, but I don't understand why I can't simply create a message listener on background?

My background script:

setTimeout(function () {
    console.log("gogo!");
    chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
        function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
            console.log(sender.tab ?
                        "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                        "from the extension");
            if (request.type == "tab") {
                console.log("tab!");
                sendResponse({status: "ok"});
            }
        }),
    2
});

Where "chrome.runtime.onMessage" is undefined.

Thanks!

Edit2: I have built a much simpler prototype, and it's failing again. Now I am really confused. Here is what I have:

$tree
.
├── manifest.json
├── src
│   ├── background.html
│   ├── background.js
│   └── test.js
└── vendor
    └── jquery.js

2 directories, 5 files

manifest.json file:

{
    "manifest_version": 2,

    "name": "test",
    "description": "test",
    "version": "1.0",
    "author": "test",

    "homepage_url": "",

    "content_scripts": [
        {
            "run_at" : "document_idle",
            "matches": ["*"],
            "js": ["vendor/jquery.js", "src/test.js"]
        }
    ],

    "background": {
        "page": "src/background.html",
        "persistent": false
    },

    "permissions": [
        "tabs",
        "*"
    ]
}

background.html file:

<script src="../vendor/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="background.js"></script>

background.js file:

function run () {
    console.log("gogo!");
    chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
        function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
            console.log(sender.tab ?
                        "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                        "from the extension");
            if (request.type == "tab") {
                console.log("tab!");
                sendResponse({status: "ok"});
            }
        });
}

run();

test.js file:

'use strict';

run();

function run() {
    var url = window.location.href;

    // Error if no URI
    if (!url) {
        return 1;
    }

    var uriRe = /https:\/\/www\.google.*/;
    var reParse = uriRe.exec(url);
    if (!reParse) {
        return 2;
    }

    chrome.runtime.sendMessage({type: "tab"}, function(response) {
        console.log(response);
    });
}

I am using Chrome 49.0.2623.112 (64-bit) on OSX.

Edit: Here is a screenshot of what happens the times it fails:

I want to precise again that it doesn't fail all the time (maybe 50% of the time?), which makes it even more weird and makes me believe there is a kind of "race" condition somewhere I am not aware of.

I am trying to create a chrome extension, but for some reasons, sometimes, the chrome.runtime object seems inplete, and a lot of methods are missing (including onMessage, which is the one I want).

It seems sometimes it works, sometimes not. I assumed it may be a time related issue, but I don't understand why I can't simply create a message listener on background?

My background script:

setTimeout(function () {
    console.log("gogo!");
    chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
        function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
            console.log(sender.tab ?
                        "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                        "from the extension");
            if (request.type == "tab") {
                console.log("tab!");
                sendResponse({status: "ok"});
            }
        }),
    2
});

Where "chrome.runtime.onMessage" is undefined.

Thanks!

Edit2: I have built a much simpler prototype, and it's failing again. Now I am really confused. Here is what I have:

$tree
.
├── manifest.json
├── src
│   ├── background.html
│   ├── background.js
│   └── test.js
└── vendor
    └── jquery.js

2 directories, 5 files

manifest.json file:

{
    "manifest_version": 2,

    "name": "test",
    "description": "test",
    "version": "1.0",
    "author": "test",

    "homepage_url": "http://www.test.",

    "content_scripts": [
        {
            "run_at" : "document_idle",
            "matches": ["https://www.google*"],
            "js": ["vendor/jquery.js", "src/test.js"]
        }
    ],

    "background": {
        "page": "src/background.html",
        "persistent": false
    },

    "permissions": [
        "tabs",
        "https://www.google*"
    ]
}

background.html file:

<script src="../vendor/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="background.js"></script>

background.js file:

function run () {
    console.log("gogo!");
    chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
        function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
            console.log(sender.tab ?
                        "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                        "from the extension");
            if (request.type == "tab") {
                console.log("tab!");
                sendResponse({status: "ok"});
            }
        });
}

run();

test.js file:

'use strict';

run();

function run() {
    var url = window.location.href;

    // Error if no URI
    if (!url) {
        return 1;
    }

    var uriRe = /https:\/\/www\.google.*/;
    var reParse = uriRe.exec(url);
    if (!reParse) {
        return 2;
    }

    chrome.runtime.sendMessage({type: "tab"}, function(response) {
        console.log(response);
    });
}

I am using Chrome 49.0.2623.112 (64-bit) on OSX.

Edit: Here is a screenshot of what happens the times it fails:

I want to precise again that it doesn't fail all the time (maybe 50% of the time?), which makes it even more weird and makes me believe there is a kind of "race" condition somewhere I am not aware of.

• javascript
• google-chrome
• google-chrome-extension
• background

• Why are you wrapping it in a timeout? – Daniel Herr Commented Apr 15, 2016 at 19:29
• Is your background page an event page? ("persistent": false set) If so, you shouldn't call setTimeout. If it is an event page check out the docs because there are some things to be aware of. – Michael Updike Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 1:14
• @DanielHerr It was just a test as I was suspecting a time related issue. It seems it was working better with a timeout, but I'm not sure about it at all. – termux Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 4:20
• @MichaelUpdike Thanks for the advice. I tried to set "persistent": false and the problem is still the same. I tried to set "persistent": true for testing, and it is still the same. – termux Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 4:21
• 1 Do you have any devtools extension running? I know of a bug where the extension runtime page was incorrectly classified as a non-extension page, which is fixed in Chrome 51 (currently Chrome Beta) - crbug./544182 – Rob W Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 9:38

4 Answers 4

Problem solved: I had to disable, then re-enable all my other extensions. Seems like a bug from Chrome.

click the top and set the console in extension environmint

enter image description here

the background just run once.you should run more to check the resutl

this is my code it wroks well:

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(
	function(tabId,info,tab){
		if(info.status=="plete")
			console.log("plete")
		chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tabId, {greeting: "inupdate"}, function(response) {
			console.log(response);
		});
	}
)

I just encountered the same problem. Typing "chrome.runtime" on the console and expanding the resulting object by clicking on the little triangle showed that it had only 1 function instead of many. In particular, chrome.runtime.onMessage was undefined.

On the page chrome://extensions I clicked the "Remove" button on the extension I was working on. I then clicked "Load unpacked" near the top of the page and selected the directory with my extension. After that, chrome.runtime was fully populated, and my extension ran correctly. I have no idea why that worked.

I think it has to do with the timeout function you are using, Google already has something called alarms which helps to schedule code to run periodically or at a specified time.

https://developer.chrome./apps/alarms

Try that instead of timeout