Forum Discussion

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 ...
Script Extensions
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 ā€” 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 ā€” 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. Iā€™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.

šŸ¤– AI-assisted response
šŸ‘ Found it helpful? Click Like
āœ… Issue resolved? Click Mark as Solution