Extension not running after exiting popup window

[Leila Hudson]

Hi Chromium Extensions Group,

I am developing a chrome extension that is running functions every 10 seconds using setInterval(). This works fine as long as the popup window is open but once it is closed it stops running. I have added background in my permissions.

Thank you!

[Patrick Kettner]

If your code is inside of a popup, it will only run when the popup is open. The background permission lets you use a background script, it doesn’t make a script run in the background. A background script is powered by a service worker, you can read more about it here - 

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/service_workers/

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[Stefan Van Damme]

Hi Leila,

Why do you need to refresh it every 10 seconds?

Note:

If you use Manifest V3 background service worker, then you can not use the setTimeout, and you must use chrome.alarms.onAlarm.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/migrating/to-service-workers/#convert-timers

Thanks,
Stefan vd

[Stefan Van Damme]

Hi Leila,

If you are making frequent requests every 10 seconds, there is a possibility that you might run into issues. The Chrome extension may work in the Chrome extension developer mode, but not when you publish it in the Chrome Web Store.

As I said before, the setTimeout and setInterval do not work in the background service worker. So you must use the chrome.alarm API. However, please note that the minimum refresh interval using this API is 1 minute (-> no seconds).

Chrome extension developer documentation:

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/service_workers/

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/migrating/to-service-workers/#convert-timers

Thanks,
Stefan vd

On Mon, Apr 24, 2023 at 7:20 PM Leila Hudson <lshu...@princeton.edu> wrote:

Hi Stefan,

I am running the function every 10 seconds since I'm collecting information each time and computing metrics from it. Would this be too often for the requests to be throttled? The code was contained in a React component. Now I have copied it into my main directory and named it background.js, also setting the service worker as background.js in my manifest.json.

Thank you!

[Patrick Kettner]

Slight correction - setTimeout and setInterval do work in a background service worker. They can become unreliable if you have a delay that is greater than the lifetime of a serviceworker idle timeout (~30 seconds for idle, ~5 minutes for continuous execution). chrome.alarm lets you get around this issue by scheduling the browser to wakeup at the time defined by your alarm. But it has a minimum resolution of 1 minute, so it won't fire more often than that.

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