Chrome Extension troubleshooting

This page presents the most frequent reasons for which the UiPath Extension for Chrome might not work properly, and how to solve these issues.

Please note that browser automations with the extension for Chrome are currently possible on a single Chrome window.

Note: You need to use at least Google Chrome version 64 to perform browser automations.

Check if the Extension for Chrome is installed and enabled

1. In Google Chrome, navigate to chrome://extensions/.
2. Make sure the extension is installed and enabled, as explained here.
3. If the extension was installed correctly but does not appear in Chrome, check if there are Group Policies that affect the extension, as explained here.
   

   Note: Selecting the Developer mode check box at the top of the chrome://extensions/ page displays the Update button on the extension Details page.

Check if ChromeNativeMessaging.exe is running

The ChromeNativeMessaging.exe enables communication between the UiPath Extension for Chrome and the UiPath Studio/Robot.

1. Open Chrome.
2. Open Task Manager.
3. Check if the ChromeNativeMessaging.exe process is running.
   
   

   

   
   
4. If the process is not running:

• Make sure the extension is installed. For more information, check the installation methods described in the Extension for Chrome page.
• Check if there are Group Policies affecting ChromeNativeMessaging.exe. See Chrome Group Policies for more information.
• Check if ComSpec variable is defined correctly.

Check if ComSpec variable is defined correctly

Description

The ChromeNativeMessaging.exe process runs under the current user and it uses cmd.exe to start the browser.

If the ComSpec environment variable is missing or has an invalid value, then Google Chrome cannot launch the ChromeNativeMessaging.exe.

Furthermore, the administrator may disable the command prompt for some users or configure it to always run with elevated privileges.

Solution

Manually add the correct value for the ComSpec environment variable. This variable is set at Windows installation and must be set to: %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe.

Other workarounds

If the ComSpec environment variable is set correctly but the problem persists, the user may not have permission to run the command prompt. In this case, the ChromeNativeMessaging.exe process cannot be started with cmd.exe running under the current user.

Starting with Chromium 120.0.6090+, a NativeHostsExecutablesLaunchDirectly Group Policy allows admins to turn this on for users in restricted environments (Cloud PCs that forbid cmd.exe, for example).

Enable access to file URLs and Incognito mode

By default, the extension is not granted access to File URLs or Incognito Mode. To enable these:

1. In Google Chrome, navigate to chrome://extensions/. The Chrome Extensions page is displayed.
2. Navigate to the UiPath Web Automation extension and click the Details button. The UiPath Web Automation details page is displayed.
3. Make sure the Allow in incognito and Allow access to file URLs options are selected.
   
   

   

   
   

Multiple browser profiles

Multiple Chrome instances with multiple user profiles

UiPath Extension for Chrome does not support automating multiple browser instances running with multiple user profiles at the same time. As such, browser automation requires you to close all active instances of Chrome and restart the browser using a single user profile.

Stopping all Chrome instances

In some cases, Chrome background processes prevent it from closing completely, which interferes with automations even if the browser instance is not visible.

We recommend closing Chrome by right-clicking the Chrome icon in the System Tray, and selecting Exit. This ensures that no other user profiles remain in use in the background.

Group Policy conflict

Description

When installing the UiPath extension for Chrome using Group Policy the ExtensionInstallForcelist is updated at the machine level.

This can cause a conflict if the ExtensionInstallForcelist is also defined at the user level or using Chrome Cloud Policies.

Because the machine level has priority, the extensions set at the user/cloud level are uninstalled.

To confirm this, check at chrome://policy if this warning is displayed under ExtensionInstallForcelist:

This policy is working as intended but a conflicting value is set elsewhere and is overridden by this policy.

Solution

To solve this conflict follow these steps:

1. Install the UiPath extension for Chrome using the NativeHostOnly installation method.

   This installation method enables communication between the extension and Studio/Robot.

   It does not make any changes to the Group Policies.

   To use this installation method add CHROME_INSTALL_TYPE=NativeHostOnly to the installation command for UiPathStudio.msi. Example: UiPathStudio.msi ADDLOCAL=DesktopFeature,Studio,Robot,RegisterService,ChromeExtension CHROME_INSTALL_TYPE=NativeHostOnly.
2. In the ExtensionInstallForceList policy, add the value:

   1. For the Group Policy Online installation method (that installs the Chrome Web Store extension):

      kmejkhcmhgilmppjodlgaklnmdmmhhcl;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx

   2. For the Group Policy Offline installation method (that installs the self-hosted extension):

      ndmegdjihnhfmljjoaiimbipfhodnbgf;file:///C:/ProgramData/UiPath/UiPath.Common/ChromeExtension_SelfHosted/extension_manifest_chrome.xml

3. In the NativeMessagingAllowList policy, add the value: com.uipath.chromenativemsg_v2.
4. Set DeveloperToolsAvailability Group Policy to the value 1 (Allow usage of the Developer Tools).

   This setting is required to enable the full extension functionality.

Known issues specific to MV3 extensions

Click activity with Simulate fails on specific web page elements

The Click activity with the Simulate input method no longer works on HTML elements that have a click handler with javascript: URI.

In this case, the simulated click will not take effect and no errors will reported.

This was reported as a Chromium bug. This issue is quite rare as very few HTML elements have click handlers in this form.

Workarounds

Two workarounds are available for this issue:

1. Identify the failing Click activity in your workflow and change the input method from Simulate to any other input method (Chromium API, Hardware Events, Window Messages).
2. Upgrade to UiPath.UIAutomation.Activities package v22.12 or newer and use the Enable workaround for simulate click with MV3 extension option in Project Settings.

The DeveloperToolsAvailability Group Policy value must be set to 1

The DeveloperToolsAvailability has the following possible values:

• 0 = Disallow usage of the Developer Tools on extensions installed by enterprise policy, allow usage of the Developer Tools in other contexts
• 1 = Allow usage of the Developer Tools
• 2 = Disallow usage of the Developer Tools

If the UiPath Extension for Chrome is installed using Group Policy, then the DeveloperToolsAvailability must be set to 1 to enable the full functionality of the extension.

This value is automatically set correctly when the extension is installed but it will be overwritten if your system administrator has set another value for this policy.

The other values for DeveloperToolsAvailability cause the problems listed below.

If DeveloperToolsAvailability is set to 0 then:

• The UiPath Extension for Chrome v22.4 will not work at all with this restriction. Please consider upgrading to the v22.10 of the extension available with UiPathStudio.msi 2022.4.4.
• The UiPath Extension for Chrome v22.10 will be restricting to working with LTS versions of UiAutomation (19.10.x, 20.10.x, 21.10.x, 22.4.x)
• The InjectJS Activity will not work.

If DeveloperToolsAvailability is set to 2 then:

• All the limitations from DeveloperToolsAvailability=0 apply
• The ChromiumAPI input method will not work.

The UiPath Web Automation browser window shows a warning

The UiPath Web Automation browser window shows the following warning if ChromeNativeMessaging.exe could not be started: Cannot communicate with UiPath Platform The native part of the extension is not configured correctly.

Re-install the extension from UiPath Studio.

See Check if ChromeNativeMessaging.exe is running.

The Inject Js Script activity can no longer be used to access page variables and code

By default, the Inject Js Script activity can no longer be used to access page variables, such as jQuery $, or to interact with page code (e.g., window.alert). The Inject Js Script activity won't report an error, but the script will fail to execute and the following error will be reported in the browser DevTools (F12): Refused to execute inline script because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive.

This is a limitation introduced by the MV3 platform.

To fix this issue, select the Execution world - Page option from the Inject Js Script activity.

This property is available starting with UiPath.UIAutomation.Activities v22.12.0-preview.

Your existing JavaScript code doesn't require any changes, and by using the Execution world - Page option it will work for both MV2 and MV3 extensions.

Open Browser activity has an insufficient timeout

For MV3 extensions, the browser loads the extension later, after the web pages have loaded. This means that on slower machines, the Open Browser activity from UiPath.UiAutomation.Activities version 22.10 or older can reach the internal timeout of 20 seconds before the extension has started.

Starting with v22.12.0-preview, the internal timeout for the Open Browser activity has been increased from 20 seconds to 60 seconds.

Since you may need to set a longer timeout for the browser startup, it is now configurable from the Use Application/Browser and Open Browser activities. The following project settings have been added:

• UI Automation Classic → Browser → Open browser timeout (seconds)

• UI Automation Modern → Application/Browser → Open browser timeout (seconds)

Additionally, you can configure the timeout through the UIPATH_OPEN_BROWSER_TIMEOUT_SECONDS environment variable. For example, set UIPATH_OPEN_BROWSER_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=120 to use 120 seconds for the activity's timeout.