Problem with GMX when extension is active

[dlbbld]

🐛 Problem Report

When the Selenium IDE Extension is active, it hangs up the browser severely after logging into GMX. It's such a special problem, I don't expect any action. But I think it is worth to note as there might be an unexpected side effect somewhere.

To Reproduce

1. Make sure the Selenium IDE Extension is active
2. Log into GMX

The page does not fully load. There is a message that the page is unresponsive. Links cannot be clicked. The tab it not usable anymore, even other URL's cannot be opened.

The browser console finally shows a series of errors like below:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: A listener indicated an asynchronous response by returning true, but the message channel closed before a response was received dl.gmx.ch/uim/connec…tps%3A//dl.gmx.ch:1
Uncaught (in promise) Error: A listener indicated an asynchronous response by returning true, but the message channel closed before a response was received logic_pbjs.html:1
Uncaught (in promise) Error: A listener indicated an asynchronous response by returning true, but the message channel closed before a response was received 1f197a5d9efb6d849433724bb397beb3.gif:1 

It seems, the extension interferes, though it is not used. If the extension is set to inactive, everything behaves as expected.

Surprisingly, this does not happen with every user account. With a rarely used account it did not occur, with a regular used account it did occur.

The problem can be reproduced on different notebooks running Windows 11 and networks, and also on ChromeOS.

Expected behavior

The page should build up normally, and links should be clickable. That is, as long the extension is not used to record, it should not interfere.

Project file reproducing this issue (highly encouraged)

None, as a general issue.

Environment

OS: Windows 11 Version 23H2 Selenium IDE Version: 4.0.1-alpha.99 Browser Version: Chrome 122.0.6261.69 (64-Bit)

[toddtarsi]

@dlbbld - Are you on v3 (webextension) or v4 (electron app)?

[dlbbld]

@toddtarsi The webextension. If I could use electron app as a replacement I drop the webextension anytime. But the electron app behaves differently. For example when loading https://www.gmx.com the page gives an error message: "An error has occurred. Please reload the page." What browser engine are you using in the electron app? It cannot be Chrome for the page loads fine in Chrome.

[dlbbld]

In my understanding, when the Selenium IDE extension in Chrome is active, but I have not yet opened the Selenium IDE, it should ideally not interfere with the browser whatsoever.

From the example, it seems to be in another way.

Maybe that is necessary, so the extension needs some initialization already. But if not the initialization might be later, when the Selenium IDE is started. Just for the idea.

Observed this for about half a year. I always assumed something wrong at GMX, and potentially resolving over time. So enough to mention.

[toddtarsi]

@dlbbld - Sorry to be slow to respond here!

I'll look into whats going on with the electron app. It's a chromium instance, so it shares a lot of code with chrome, but certain parts are handrolled so that I can capture and record stuff (alerts, confirms, prompts, tabs, etc). Generally, nothing should be failing at this point in v4. Next version I'm probably shifting the tags from alpha to beta.

[toddtarsi]

Damn, this is a tricky one. Unfortunately, nothing gets logged and no exception is generated, not even a caught one. I'll have to read through the page source to find out what is going on here. I'll try and set some time aside for that this weekend.