chrome is deleting _metadata folder for an extension loaded unpacked

[bo reddude]

I have a paid extension that I really need for working on mturk. It's called task archive which is no longer available in the store. Last year when I bought a windows 10 laptop, it copied over from my old laptop (windows 7) without any issue by using google account sync. Then I wanted to try out on brave a couple of weeks ago and it didn't work. So when I copied the entire folder over, it must have corrupted the installed and working copy in my chrome on my new computer. 

So I decided to load the extension from unpacked from my old laptop, but the _metadata folder with the computed_hashes.json and verified_conted.json didn't get installed, so I copied it over. And in the manifest.json, there was an update_url specified, but it no longer updates, so I deleted the line. 

Then it was working again, but today I noticed the icon is gray, which means it's not working. So I checked and it's missing the _metadat folder again. It's just keeps deleting the folder on its own. And it throws the following error after it deletes it. 

---

Unchecked runtime.lastError: Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist.

Context

html/popup.html

Stack Trace

html/popup.html:0 (anonymous function)

Nothing to see here, move along.

---

In the manifest.json there are these lines regarding those function calls. 

---

"background": { "page": "html/background.html", "persistent": true }, "browser_action": { "default_icon": { "16": "png/16b.png", "24": "png/24b.png", "32": "png/32b.png" }, "default_popup": "html/popup.html" },

---

How can I make chrome keep the _metadata folder for this extension? Why is this deleting behavior necessary? 

And how can I edit the lines throwing error so that it will keep working? Note this windows 10 laptop was working perfectly initially after the sync. So something got corrupted and I have no idea what happened. I'm not a programmer, but I really need this extension to make a living. Can anyone help me? Much appreciated. 

Sean 

[hrg...@gmail.com]

You don't need the _metadata folder if you load an unpacked extension. That folder is generated automatically by the Web Store and Chrome uses it to verify that the extension hasn't been tampered with.

But this obviously doesn't apply when you load an unpacked extension in developer mode.

Just get rid of that folder and the extension should work fine.

[bo reddude]

The extension is not available from the webstore anymore. The developer has closed up the domain and cannot be contacted. What's more puzzling is that it was sync'd last year  and the _metadata was generated fine. It's just that this time around, it's not generating the metadata. 

Meanwhile, the only thing makes it work is if I copy the _metadata I have from my old laptop which this laptop sync'd from. But it just keeps deleting it. 

[Cuyler Stuwe]

As the previous commenter suggested, the _metadata folder is autogenerated; It shouldn't really be relevant for your use case and it should be fine for you to delete it.

Also, there are numerous MTurk tools that are significantly better than Task Archive ever was; I would consider this a "blessing in disguise" which urges you to improve your process.

[bo reddude]

>It shouldn't really be relevant for your use case and it should be fine for you to delete it.

Then why doesn't it work if the _metadata folder is deleted? Chrome will not autogenerate the folder because it's not in the webstore. And then chrome generates that error message I included in my first post, then it stops functioning. 

I tried out MTSuite by kadauchi. It seems ok, but all my turk data is backed up in task archive which I do need. And MTS will not import that backup HIT which is crucial in avoiding repeating the HITs. 

So far the only trick that has worked is deleting the update-url line in the manifest.json, load from unpacked. and then keep copying and pasting the metadata folder into the chrome extension directory. There has to be something I can do here to make it more permanent. And it was a paid extension so it has the keys which I kept. If I delete that, and load from unpacked, chrome will not enable it saying the extension is not loaded from the store, and that the owner should upload the file to the store. 

[Cuyler Stuwe]

That folder might have some obscure undocumented functionality for extensions which are written to use CWS payments, perhaps.

But if it does, very few (if any) would know; Most of us never used CWS payments, and even fewer would have reason to download their submitted source from the CWS. It’s not even really interesting knowledge now, since CWS payments were totally deprecated.

As far as MTurk goes, the vast majority of survey requesters submit HITs through services that prevent you from repeating work; it’s not as important as you probably think it is. And for batch work, repeating work is the name of the game.

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[bo reddude]

Ok. Thank you for all the help, everyone. Where would I find more info about the language used in chrome extension? is it javascript? 

[PhistucK]

Yep, JavaScript/HTML/CSS. Possibly also Web Assembly, but probably not.

☆PhistucK

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