PSA: Changes to `chrome.sidePanel` API behavior in Chrome 131

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know about two small changes that were made to the behavior of the `chrome.sidePanel` API in Chrome 131:

• We have fixed a bug where calling `chrome.sidePanel.open()` would cause a crash. This happened if only the `windowId` parameter was provided and the tab-specific panel was disabled.
• When a tab-specific side panel is registered, we will no longer automatically show it if the global side panel is open for that tab.

These changes were part of some larger architectural changes to the implementation, but we wanted to communicate them to extension developers ahead of time. We don't expect any other behavior changes, but if you're using the API, you may wish to test your extension in Chrome Canary to ensure it still behaves as expected.

Thanks,
Oliver on behalf of Chrome Extensions DevRel