Chrome Extension API not firing onChanged event - javascript

I am using chrome.downloads.onChanged.addListener to find out when a download completes.
The callback does not fire sometimes, and there is no apparent reason for it.
The code looks like this
chrome.downloads.onChanged.addListener(function (downloadDelta) {...});
and it is in background.js and file is mentioned in background section of manifest. I added console.log(downloadDelta); at the very begining of callback, but it is not fired.
The API is mentioned here
EDIT: Test extension

Most probably this has to do with peculiarities of Event pages - something not working properly when your page gets unloaded.
This is easy to test - remove "persistent": "false" from the manifest.
That said, your test extension does not violate any Event page recommendations and chrome.downloads API does not list any incompatibilities. Therefore, 2 scenarios are possible:
It's quite possible that you are misinterpreting results due to the page being unloaded. For instance, if the page gets unloaded between the callback executing and you opening the devtools for it - the console and all local state will be wiped.
To test for that, make sure to write your diagnostics to persistent storage - chrome.storage API is one option for this.
If you are 100% sure the above is not the case, there may be a bug related to event pages and chrome.downloads. In that case, it should be reported.

Related

Inject javascript at the very top of the page \ Anti iframe-buster

I'm developing an extension that, sometimes, will show some websites inside iframes. I've already bypassed the X-FRAME-OPTIONS issue but now I'm stuck with the simple iframe buster code, eg.:
if (top != self) {
document.getElementsByTagName("html")[0].style.display = "none";
top.location.replace(location);
}
I'm trying to inject javascript at the very top of the page to override the window.top object, but at document_start is already too late to inject it, ie alert() is never called before the buster script runs:
chrome.webRequest.onCompleted.addListener(function(details) {
if (isEnabled) {
chrome.tabs.executeScript(details.tabId, {frameId: details.frameId, runAt: "document_start", code: "alert('asas');"});
}
}, {
types: ["sub_frame"],
urls: ["<all_urls>"]
});
Is there any way around this?
Thank you
The problem is probably caused by chrome.webRequest.onCompleted.addListener listener being asynchronous
document_start injects code before any DOM is created, so that is not the cause of your problem. I have verified this while playing around and trying to answer this question.
The problem here is that chrome.webRequest.onCompleted.addListener is asynchronous, which means that when the callback (and therefor your chrome.tabs.executeScript) is executed, the browser has already started constructing the DOM.
You can start by injecting the script to all relevant iframes directly using the "content_scripts" in manifest.json instead of using programmatic injection. I haven't verified this, but you could also try injecting the script from a chrome.webRequest.onHeadersReceived listener with the "blocking" option, which allows you to handle the request synchronously. You are probably already listening to onHeadersReceived in order to remove the X-Frame-Options header anyway.
Edit:
Programmatic injection in a blocking onHeadersReceived listener is not possible. Chrome returns an error about lack of permissions - probably because the URL is not known at this point yet (the headers could cause a redirect).

Is there an alternative to preprocessorScript for Chrome DevTools extensions?

I want to create a custom profiler for Javascript as a Chrome DevTools Extension. To do so, I'd have to instrument all Javascript code of a website (parse to AST, inject hooks, generate new source). This should've been easily possible using chrome.devtools.inspectedWindow.reload() and its parameter preprocessorScript described here: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/devtools_inspectedWindow.
Unfortunately, this feature has been removed (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=438626) because nobody was using it.
Do you know of any other way I could achieve the same thing with a Chrome Extension? Is there any other way I can replace an incoming Javascript source with a changed version? This question is very specific to Chrome Extensions (and maybe extensions to other browsers), I'm asking this as a last resort before going a different route (e.g. dedicated app).
Use the Chrome Debugging Protocol.
First, use DOMDebugger.setInstrumentationBreakpoint with eventName: "scriptFirstStatement" as a parameter to add a break-point to the first statement of each script.
Second, in the Debugger Domain, there is an event called scriptParsed. Listen to it and if called, use Debugger.setScriptSource to change the source.
Finally, call Debugger.resume each time after you edited a source file with setScriptSource.
Example in semi-pseudo-code:
// Prevent code being executed
cdp.sendCommand("DOMDebugger.setInstrumentationBreakpoint", {
eventName: "scriptFirstStatement"
});
// Enable Debugger domain to receive its events
cdp.sendCommand("Debugger.enable");
cdp.addListener("message", (event, method, params) => {
// Script is ready to be edited
if (method === "Debugger.scriptParsed") {
cdp.sendCommand("Debugger.setScriptSource", {
scriptId: params.scriptId,
scriptSource: `console.log("edited script ${params.url}");`
}, (err, msg) => {
// After editing, resume code execution.
cdg.sendCommand("Debugger.resume");
});
}
});
The implementation above is not ideal. It should probably listen to the breakpoint event, get to the script using the associated event data, edit the script and then resume. Listening to scriptParsed and then resuming the debugger are two things that shouldn't be together, it could create problems. It makes for a simpler example, though.
On HTTP you can use the chrome.webRequest API to redirect requests for JS code to data URLs containing the processed JavaScript code.
However, this won't work for inline script tags. It also won't work on HTTPS, since the data URLs are considered unsafe. And data URLs are can't be longer than 2MB in Chrome, so you won't be able to redirect to large JS files.
If the exact order of execution of each script isn't important you could cancel the script requests and then later send a message with the script content to the page. This would make it work on HTTPS.
To address both issues you could redirect the HTML page itself to a data URL, in order to gain more control. That has a few negative consequences though:
Can't reload page because URL is fixed to data URL
Need to add or update <base> tag to make sure stylesheet/image URLs go to the correct URL
Breaks ajax requests that require cookies/authentication (not sure if this can be fixed)
No support for localStorage on data URLs
Not sure if this works: in order to fix #1 and #4 you could consider setting up an HTML page within your Chrome extension and then using that as the base page instead of a data URL.
Another idea that may or may not work: Use chrome.debugger to modify the source code.

Chrome App messaging and 'loadstop' vs. .load() timing

I am developing a Chrome App with webviews. Pages intended for the webviews may also run in a regular browser. If inside a webview, pages send messages to the main App, but apparently they need to get a message from the App first, in order to know where to send their messages.
No problem - the main App sends a message as soon as it sees a 'loadstop' event which tells the pages where to send messages to. If a page is not in a webview then it never gets the message.
The problem is, I need to know when a page should stop waiting for the message and assume it is NOT in a webview.
When does 'loadstop' occur, relative to events in the page such as jQuery's .ready or .load? Is there a way to trap or trigger an event guaranteed to occur after 'loadstop' MIGHT be seen in the main App and a message sent and received by the webview's JavaScript.
When does 'loadstop' occur, relative to events in the page such as jQuery's .ready or .load?
According to the documentation for the loadstop event:
Fired when all frame-level loads in a guest page (including all its subframes) have completed. This includes navigation within the current document as well as subframe document-level loads, but does not include asynchronous resource loads.
This would suggest it's more akin to jQuery's .ready(), which executes after the DOM tree is loaded, but before waiting for asset (.css, .js) downloads.
Keep an eye on that documentation page; it's already much improved since two weeks ago.
Is there a way to trap or trigger an event guaranteed to occur after 'loadstop' MIGHT be seen in the main App and a message sent and received by the webview's JavaScript?
Your manifest.json declares your my-app-main.js background script (and your webview permission) which launches your my-webview-wrapper.html which includes your <webview> tag and also inlines some javascript (or sources a my-webview-wrapper.js file) that assigns event listeners to your webview via an onload function as such:
onload = function() {
webview = document.getElementById("the-id-attribute-of-my-webview");
webview.addEventListener("<EVENT>", function() {
// the cool stuff you want to do
}
}
<EVENT> can be any of the webview DOM events listed in the documentation I linked (including loadstop). Your main app shouldn't really care that any of this is happening. (It's async! It's javascript! It's magic!)
If you're still confused, just poke around Google's webview sample on GitHub.

"undefined" randomly appended in 1% of requested urls on my website since 12 june 2012

Since 12 june 2012 11:20 TU, I see very weirds errors in my varnish/apache logs.
Sometimes, when a user has requested one page, several seconds later I see a similar request but the all string after the last / in the url has been replaced by "undefined".
Example:
http://example.com/foo/bar triggers a http://example.com/foo/undefined request.
Of course theses "undefined" pages does not exist and my 404 page is returned instead (which is a custom page with a standard layout, not a classic apache 404)
This happens with any pages (from the homepage to the deepest)
with various browsers, (mostly Chrome 19, but also firefox 3.5 to 12, IE 8/9...) but only 1% of the trafic.
The headers sent by these request are classic headers (and there is no ajax headers).
For a given ip, this seems occur randomly: sometimes at the first page visited, sometimes on a random page during the visit, sometimes several pages during the visit...
Of course it looks like a javascript problem (I'm using jquery 1.7.2 hosted by google), but I've absolutely nothing changed in the js/html or the server configuration since several days and I never saw this kind of error before. And of course, there is no such links in the html.
I also noticed some interesting facts:
the undefined requests are never found as referer of another pages, but instead the "real" pages were used as referer for the following request of the same IP (the user has the ability to use the classic menu on the 404 page)
I did not see any trace of these pages in Google Analytics, so I assume no javascript has been executed (tracker exists on all pages including 404)
nobody has contacted us about this, even when I invoked the problem in the social networks of the website
most of the users continue the visit after that
All theses facts make me think the problem occurs silently in the browers, probably triggered by a buggy add-on, antivirus, a browser bar or a crappy manufacturer soft integrated in browsers updated yesterday (but I didn't find any add-on released yesterday for chrome, firefox and IE).
Is anyone here has noticed the same issue, or have a more complete explanation?
There is no simple straight answer.
You are going to have to debug this and it is probably JavaScript due to the 'undefined' word in the URL. However it doesn't have to be AJAX, it could be JavaScript creating any URL that is automatically resolved by the browser (e.g. JavaScript that sets the src attribute on an image tag, setting a css-image attribute, etc). I use Firefox with Firebug installed most of the time, so my directions will be with that in mind.
Firebug Initial Setup
Skip this if you already know how to use Firebug.
After the installs and restarting Firefox for Firebug, you are going to have to enable most of Firebug's 'panels'. To open Firebug there will be a little fire bug/insect looking thing in the top right corner of your browser or you can press F12. Click through the Firebug tabs 'Console', 'Script', 'Net' and enable them by opening them up and reading the panel's information. You might have to refresh the page to get them working properly.
Debugging User Interaction
Navigate to one of the pages that has the issue with Firebug open and the Net panel active. In the Net panel there will be a few options: 'Clear', 'Persist', 'All', 'Html', etc. Make sure ALL is selected. Don't do anything on the page and try not to mouse over anything on it. Look through the requests. The request for the invalid URL will be red and probably have a status of 404 Not Found (or similar).
See it on load? Skip to the next part.
Don't see it on initial load? Start using your page and continue here.
Start clicking on every feature, mouse over everything, etc. Keep your eyes on the Net panel and watch for a requests that fail. You might have to be creative, but continue using your application till you see your browser make an invalid request. If the page makes many requests, feel free to hit the 'Clear' button on the top left of the Net panel to clear it up a bit.
If you submit the page and see a failed request go out really quick but then lose it because the next page loads, enable persistence by clicking 'Persist' in the top left of the Net panel.
Once it does, and it should, consider what you did to make that happen. See if you can make it happen again. After you figure out what user interaction is making it happen, dive into that code and start looking for things that are making invalid requests.
You can use the Script tab to setup breakpoints in your JavaScript and step through them. Investigate event handlers done via $(elemment).bind/click/focus/etc or from old school event attributes like onclick=""/onfocus="" etc.
If the request is happening as soon as the page loads
This is going to be a little harder to peg down. You will need to go to the Script tab and start adding break points to every script that runs on load. You do this by clicking on the left side of the line of JavaScript.
Reload your page and your break points should stop the browser from loading the page. Press the 'Continue' button on the script panel. Go to your net panel and see if your request was made, continue till it is found. You can use this to narrow down where the request is being made from by slowly adding more and more break points and then stepping into and out of functions.
What you are looking for in your code
Something that is similar to the following:
var url = workingUrl + someObject['someProperty'];
var url = workingUrl + someObject.someProperty;
Keep in mind that someObject might be an object {}, an array [], or any of the internal browser types. The point is that a property will be accessed that doesn't exist.
I don't see any 404/red requests
Then whatever is causing it isn't being triggered by your tests. Try using more things. The point is you should be able to make the request happen somehow. You just don't know yet. It has to show up in the Net panel. The only time it won't is when you aren't doing whatever triggers it.
Conclusion
There is no super easy way to peg down what exactly is going on. However using the methods I outlined you should be at least be able to get close. It is probably something you aren't even considering.
Based on this post, I reverse-engineered the "Complitly" Chrome Plugin/malware, and found that this extension is injecting an "improved autocomplete" feature that was throwing "undefined" requests at every site that has a input text field with NAME or ID of "search", "q" and many others.
I found also that the enable.js file (one of complitly files) were checking a global variable called "suggestmeyes_loaded" to see if it's already loaded (like a Singleton). So, setting this variable to false disables the plugin.
To disable the malware and stop "undefined" requests, apply this to every page with a search field on your site:
<script type="text/javascript">
window.suggestmeyes_loaded = true;
</script>
This malware also redirects your users to a "searchcompletion.com" site, sometimes showing competitors ADS. So, it should be taken seriously.
You have correctly established that the undefined relates to a JavaScript problem and if your site users haven't complained about seeing error pages, you could check the following.
If JavaScript is used to set or change image locations, it sometimes happens that an undefined makes its way into the URI.
When that happens, the browser will happily try to load the image (no AJAX headers), but it will leave hints: it sets a particular Accept: header; instead of text/html, text/xml, ... it will use image/jpeg, image/png, ....
Once such a header is confirmed, you have narrowed down the problem to images only. Finding the root cause will possibly take some time though :)
Update
To help debugging you could override $.fn.attr() and invoke the debugger when something is being assigned to undefined. Something like this:
​(function($, undefined) {
var $attr = $.fn.attr;
$.fn.attr = function(attributeName, value) {
var v = attributeName === 'src' ? value : attributeName.src;
if (v === 'undefined') {
alert("Setting src to undefined");
}
return $attr(attributeName, value);
}
}(jQuery));
Some facts that have been established, especially in this thread: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/chrome/G1snYHaHSOc/p8RLCohxz2kJ
it happens on pages that have no javascript at all.
this proves that it is not an on-page programming error
the user is unaware of the issue and continues to browse quite happily.
it happens a few seconds after the person visits the page.
it doesn't happen to everybody.
happens on multiple browsers (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Mobile Safari, Opera)
happens on multiple operating systems (Linux, Android, NT)
happens on multiple web servers (IIS, Nginx, Apache)
I have one case of googlebot following the link and claiming the same referrer. They may just be trying to be clever and the browser communicated it to the mothership who then set out a bot to investigate.
I am fairly convinced by the proposal that it is caused by plugins. Complitly is one, but that doesn't support Opera. There many be others.
Though the mobile browsers weigh against the plugin theory.
Sysadmins have reported a major drop off by adding some javascript on the page to trick Complitly into thinking it is already initialized.
Here's my solution for nginx:
location ~ undefined/?$ {
return 204;
}
This returns "yeah okay, but no content for you".
If you are on website.com/some/page and you (somehow) navigate to website.com/some/page/undefined the browser will show the URL as changed but will not even do a page reload. The previous page will stay as it was in the window.
If for some reason this is something experienced by users then they will have a clean noop experience and it will not disturb whatever they were doing.
This sounds like a race condition where a variable is not getting properly initialized before getting used. Considering this is not an AJAX issue according to your comments, there will be a couple of ways of figuring this out, listed below.
Hookup a Javascript exception Logger: this will help you catch just about all random javascript exceptions in your log. Most of the time programmatic errors will bubble up here. Put it before any scripts. You will need to catch these on the server and print them to your logs for analysis later. This is your first line of defense. Here is an example:
window.onerror = function(m,f,l) {
var e = window.encodeURIComponent;
new Image().src = "/jslog?msg=" + e(m) + "&filename=" + e(f) + "&line=" + e(l) + "&url=" + e(window.location.href);
};
Search for window.location: for each of these instances you should add logging or check for undefined concats/appenders to your window.location. For example:
function myCode(loc) {
// window.location.href = loc; // old
typeof loc === 'undefined' && window.onerror(...); //new
window.location.href = loc; //new
}
or the slightly cleaner:
window.setLocation = function(url) {
/undefined/.test(url) ?
window.onerror(...) : window.location.href = url;
}
function myCode(loc) {
//window.location.href = loc; //old
window.setLocation(loc); //new
}
If you are interested in getting stacktraces at this stage take a look at: https://github.com/eriwen/javascript-stacktrace
Grab all unhandled undefined links: Besides window.location The only thing left are the DOM links themselves. The third step is to check all unhandeled DOM links for your invalid URL pattern (you can attach this right after jQuery finishes loading, earlier better):
$("body").on("click", "a[href$='undefined']", function() {
window.onerror('Bad link: ' + $(this).html()); //alert home base
});
Hope this is helpful. Happy debugging.
I'm wondering if this might be an adblocker issue. When I search through the logs by IP address it appears that every request by a particular user to /folder/page.html is followed by a request to /folder/undefined
I don't know if this helps, but my website is replacing one particular *.webp image file with undefined after it's loaded in multiple browsers. Is your site hosting webp images?
I had a similar problem (but with /null 404 errors in the console) that #andrew-martinez's answer helped me to resolve.
Turns out that I was using img tags with an empty src field:
<img src="" alt="My image" data-src="/images/my-image.jpg">
My idea was to prevent browser from loading the image at page load to manually load later by setting the src attribute from the data-src attribute with javascript (lazy loading). But when combined with iDangerous Swiper, that method caused the error.

how to fix iframe load never terminating the browser visual spinner and 'Transfer ...' status

I have pages loading json into hidden iframes from javascript.
The Firefox browser seems to never acknowledge fully receiving the iframe content, and reports 'Transferring data from ...' on the status line, and shows the twirly 'busy' icon on the tab, indefinitely.
I am using jQuery to bind the 'load' handlers, and would prefer a solution that does not involve over-riding jQuery functionality.
btw, the load handler does fire, the json received is complete, and the iframe itself gets .remove()d in the cleanup code. The browser still waits for something to signal completeness.
Ben Nadel posted a blogpost on just this topic.
It seems that Firefox acknowledges that an iframe document was completely received only after the onload handler returns. If the iframe is deleted from the DOM within the handler, Firefox never detects completion. The solution Mr Nadel suggested, and which I used, is to use the javascript timer to call a deletion function to run after a brief delay. This allows the handler to return while the iframe persists, but does not let the iframe linger around.

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