breaking change: saved tab groups don't work

[Jackie Han]

Chrome has enabled "saved tab group" feature by default on desktops now.

I have received user feedback and have found the following issues:

1. a tab in a saved group can't be activated, i.e. `chrome.tabs.update(tab.id, { active: true })` fails

2. a saved group can't be updated, i.e. `chrome.tabGroups.update(groupId, { updateProperties })  fails.

Both operations throw "Unchecked runtime.lastError: Saved groups are not editable."

For active tab error, there are already some issues:

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/323750324

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40288048

For updating group error, I didn't find an issue report. I will report one. 

Jackie Han

[Jackie Han]

I just created an issue for updating a saved tab group: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/323982812

[Jackie Han]

The people, who verify this issue https://issues.chromium.org/issues/323982812, is too inexperienced.

In fact, Devlin Cronin already confirmed it in another issue.

https://crrev.com/cdd6a8827e5c0e39cb64b78c23b8a781d241aac1

This is an urgent issue that affects all users who use the "save group" function. Because tab and tabGroup api simply don't work for a saved group.

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Jackie,

Thanks for opening that additional bug. I was aware of this issue in general and was able to reproduce using your example. I'll see if I can help move it along.

As you mention, Devlin (the technical lead for extensions) is already aware and we are looking into this. Based on what I've seen, I think this is important to fix, but not necessarily urgent. I do think it would be good to make sure things are working as we intend over the next release cycle, though.

If you have a specific use case you'd like to share, those are always helpful.

Thanks,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

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[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Jackie,

I had a chance to speak to the team and they are actively working on removing the restrictions. There is a bit of work to be done beforehand, so it won't be right away, but they are hoping to have it done soon.

As a note, there are some planned changes in the future to start saving tab groups by default. That isn't planned until Chrome 126 however, and changing the extension APIs is considered a blocker, so that definitely won't ship beforehand.

I hope that helps,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Jackie Han]

Thank the extension team for actively addressing this issue.

I can imagine that the saved tab group feature has some special requirements. The problem this time is that they released a breaking change to users while the internal issue was not resolved (in the past, this feature was behind the flag and disabled by default).

[Jackie Han]

Issue 323982812 marked as Duplicate of 40288048.

Issue 40288048 marked as fixed now.

But issue 40288048 doesn't fix issue 323982812.

So issue 323982812 should be reopened.

[Jackie Han]

Update: Issue 323982812  was reopened and is now finally fixed!

In the latest Chrome Canary (125), chrome.tabGroups.update() for collapse, title and color works on a saved tab group.

Thanks for fixing. The fixes to these two issues(40288048 and 323982812) have alleviated problems with common use cases.

But "Saved Group" still has some limitations, for example:

• can't pin a tab
• can't move a tab out of a saved group or ungroup a tab
  

These operations are allowed in Chrome built-in tabstrip.

I don't know what the ultimate limit of the saved group is, and developers can't detect if a group is a "saved group". These are the next steps the extension team should consider.

Best

[hrg...@gmail.com]

If at the very least we were given an explanation of why tabs in a saved tab group have this restrictions, we could at least understand the conundrum.

Instead, all we got was a terse "Won't Fix. This is intended behavior". But after that, the bug was reopened and some of those limitations were fixed.

Why in the world is it intended that extensions must not be able to operate with tabs in a saved tab group?

[Oliver Dunk]

If at the very least we were given an explanation of why tabs in a saved tab group have this restrictions, we could at least understand the conundrum.

I don't think hiding this was intentional, so apologies for the lack of clarity there.

One of the main concerns I am aware of is that tabGroups can sync between devices and there are concerns about the implications of allowing extensions to make changes without a user's knowledge. As mentioned, this isn't to say we will never allow it and I wouldn't say the restrictions are intended long term - we are just planning to make a couple of other changes first before we open up the extension APIs again.

Since this is a new feature, and isn't fully owned by the extensions team, we have to work together with the other teams involved to agree on what an extension should be able to do and make that possible.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB