I just started using the latest fix (the "Secure Shell (dev)" app) to get easy access to a crosh window via crosh.html in the secure shell app, and I am just summarizing here my understanding hoping to be helpful to those who are just users of the crosh/secure shell apps and want to get around the broken crosh window.
I am using "Secure Shell (dev)" located
here. This is not "Secure Shell" but a separately released modified version of the normal "Secure Shell" app for users needing the crosh window functionality. Note you must be subscribed to the chromium-hterm mailing list to access the link. Also, the
release notes say this is a temporary fix before moving to a v2 app. As I understand it, the Crosh Window app and Secure Shell apps (permissions problems) have been fixed so that the "Crosh Window" app should work again. However, the new versions of the apps don't seem to be updated in the stores yet, at least not to everyone, as my versions haven't updated.
If you visit the link, you can install it normally. It will have a different icon in your apps pop-up menu window. As far as I can tell, it co-exists with the regular Secure Shell app, which I still use for a lot of presets I have there. Once the "Secure Shell (dev)" app is installed, you can launch it. If you put ">crosh" in the hostname field (without the quotes), and enter any username (doesn't matter what username), and hit enter, (you don't click on the connect button), you should be able to launch the usual crosh window. You still have to change the font size and all that, as mentioned in the
manual you can read by visiting the link in the app window at the top. Note the manual discussion about launching a crosh window was out of date and incorrect, the last time I read it.
For the time being, you have to use the "Java Console" to make changes to preferences, and you can also use it to launch "crosh.html" (the crosh shell part of the Secure Shell app). To get there, you focus on the window of the app you want to change and type ctrl-shift-j. This will bring up the "Java Console". You can type in some programming lines as mentioned in the manual to change preferences, for example typing term_.prefs_.set('font-size',10) followed by enter key will change the font size to 10.
Finally, if all else fails, you can use the Java Console (reached by ctrl-shift-j after focusing on the app window) to change the document location to the crosh shell within the Secure Shell app by typing in the Java Console, the line: document.location='crosh.html' followed by the enter key. The app window should switch to a crosh shell. This works fine, but it is just cumbersome.
My apologies in advance for any errors in what I've summarized here. I hope this somewhat lengthy post is not annoying to the developers or moderators. It is not at all my intention to cause any problems or propagate any incorrect information. However, having spent a lot of time playing with the alternatives when the Crosh Window app stopped working, I thought it could be helpful to have this summary of all the snippets gathered from various places.