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MattS's avatar
MattS
Occasional Contributor
22 days ago

TC extension frequently disappears from chrome

Platform - Windows (Airgapped, no web access)
Testcomplete Version 15.61.
Chrome Version - 144.0.7559.110.

 

BLUF - TC extension frequently disappears from chrome

 

Has anyone encountered this issue and found a workaround?

 

Hello - I am experiencing issues with the Testcomplete extension in Chrome. Generally, the extension is spontaneously disappearing from the browser and causing test failure. My test framework has been fairly stable for 3 years now - Testexecute sessions test on Chrome with the extension, driven by GitLab CI on windows runner virtual machines. About a month a go, we started encountering this issues with the disappearing extension. We've attempted to enforce installation via group policy, including the solution described here 

https://support.smartbear.com/testcomplete/docs/app-testing/web/general/preparing-browsers/chrome-extension-forced-installation.html

but the extension will not remain installed.

Script Extensions

3 Replies

  • wsgarcia's avatar
    wsgarcia
    Occasional Contributor
    22 days ago

    Yes, I've had this happen over the last few days. Yesterday I reinstalled on my test VMs after they had uninstalled and today I triaged the test runs from last night and the extension uninstalled in between tests. 

    I thought it was an update to Chrome that caused this as I've had that happen before but only a couple of times over the last four years. But I verified there was no update. 

    I was going to check with our system admins but wanted to check here and found this post. 

    Please look into this. This is not sustainable if we are going to be running against our builds. 

    • Hassan_Ballan's avatar
      Hassan_Ballan
      Icon for Champion Level 3 rankChampion Level 3
      22 days ago

      Thanks for the additional data point — this actually helps narrow things down.

      Since multiple users are now seeing the extension uninstall between test runs, and Chrome updates have been ruled out, this points away from a Chrome regression and toward an environmental change.

      Chrome does not remove extensions arbitrarily. The most common causes in CI / VM setups are:

      • Chrome user profile being recreated or cleaned between runs (new user context, VM revert, profile cleanup task, etc.)
      • Browser being closed and relaunched and coming up under a different or fresh profile
      • Native Messaging Host removal or invalidation (for example, tcCrHost.exe or its registry entries being removed by security tooling or image updates), which causes Chrome to automatically disable/remove the extension

      Reinstalling the extension temporarily working is consistent with this — it will continue to disappear as long as the underlying profile or native host state is not persistent.

      Force-install via policy ensures enforcement, but it does not protect against profile resets or native messaging host failures. I’d recommend checking for recent VM image changes, profile cleanup/hardening tasks, and verifying native messaging registration exists for the user running TestExecute at the time of failure.

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  • rraghvani's avatar
    rraghvani
    Icon for Champion Level 3 rankChampion Level 3
    21 days ago

    If your SmartBear Test Extension is below v15.0.8, Chrome will usually disable the extension as unsupported and remove it on next restart.

    You might be able to get more information from Chrome Policy via chrome://policy, as to why it was removed.