Forum Discussion

heidi_n's avatar
heidi_n
Regular Contributor
10 years ago

Question about TC10 with Chrome 42 - NPAPI Plugins No Longer Supported?

I have TC10 tests that use Chrome 42. Is the notification below something I should be worried about? Is there a patch or anything I need to download? Will my tests soon no longer work because of this...
  • chrisb's avatar
    chrisb
    10 years ago

    NPAPI is not related to API's. NPAPI is a plugin technology that Google announced they will stop supporting in Chrome from version 45 onwards. The Test Complete browser plugin is implemented in NPAPI. Therefore if you run Test Complete tests in Chrome you need to configure Chrome to allow the TestComplete plugin to work as NPAPI is disabled by default. After you do this an informational message is displayed reminding you that NPAPI support will be dropped in a later version of Chrome. I suppose they need to do this so that all the people that are living under a rock and didnt know about this dont freak out when NPAPI plugins stop working in version 45.

     

    SmartBear did announce somewhere on these forum pages that their development team is working on a replacement for their current plugin so it will continue to work on Chrome 45 onwards. 

     

    So to summarize... If you are using Test Complete in Chrome you need to enable NPAPI support for your tests to work. Disregard the message displayed. Wait for a new plugin release from SmartBear prior to or around the release of Chrome 45.

     

     

heidi_n's avatar
heidi_n
Regular Contributor
10 years ago

How would I know if my applications use NPAPI? I know we use API, but I don't know if it's NPAPI or something else.

  • chrisb's avatar
    chrisb
    Regular Contributor
    10 years ago

    NPAPI is not related to API's. NPAPI is a plugin technology that Google announced they will stop supporting in Chrome from version 45 onwards. The Test Complete browser plugin is implemented in NPAPI. Therefore if you run Test Complete tests in Chrome you need to configure Chrome to allow the TestComplete plugin to work as NPAPI is disabled by default. After you do this an informational message is displayed reminding you that NPAPI support will be dropped in a later version of Chrome. I suppose they need to do this so that all the people that are living under a rock and didnt know about this dont freak out when NPAPI plugins stop working in version 45.

     

    SmartBear did announce somewhere on these forum pages that their development team is working on a replacement for their current plugin so it will continue to work on Chrome 45 onwards. 

     

    So to summarize... If you are using Test Complete in Chrome you need to enable NPAPI support for your tests to work. Disregard the message displayed. Wait for a new plugin release from SmartBear prior to or around the release of Chrome 45.

     

     

  • chrisb's avatar
    chrisb
    Regular Contributor
    10 years ago

    Here's a comment from the community manager a while back. It clearly says the TC developers are working on an alternative to the NPAPI plugin.....

     

     

    The messages you get are likely to be rather informative, than warning. They seem to be related to the fact that Chrome is going to stop supporting NPAPI in September 2015. Our R&D team is aware of this, and they are working on the alternative solutions.

     

    So, you shouldn’t worry right now. As for TC 10.6, our Chrome support plugins are supposed to work fine for Chrome 43 if they are set up correctly.

     

    http://community.smartbear.com/t5/Functional-Web-Testing/Chrome-displaying-TestComplete-Plugin-Unsupported-message/m-p/100349#M24921