[Bug] Unable to activate extension on Microsoft Edge

[ariskoutris]

I use version 1.13.5 on Edge 111.0.1661.54 but I've been having this issue ever since I started using 10ten, 4-5 months ago.

On certain occasions, the extension becomes unresponsive and can't be activated with any of the 3 activation methods (icon, context menu, shortcut).

I do not know exactly how to reproduce this, but I believe that it is related to the fact that I have many browser windows open across different virtual desktops. Closing all edge windows and removing the virtual desktops fixes the problem but I would like to avoid doing that.

I would say that about 50% of the times that I try to use the extension I am not able to activate it.

[birtles]

Hi @ariskoutris!

Thank you very much for filing this. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you and I'm really sorry the extension is proving so unreliable.

I'm afraid I haven't heard of anyone else experiencing this problem yet so I'm not quite sure where to start but I wonder if you can help with the following questions:

1. When the extension becomes unresponsive, does that mean that the icon no longer toggles between on and off? Or just that the popup no longer shows up? (This will help us determine if the problem is occurring in the background page or the content script.)
2. Do you have other extensions installed? (Sometimes problems are caused by interactions with other extensions.)
3. Does this happen on specific sites or all sites? (For example, Edge will not allow extensions to run on the default home page.)
4. Do you see any error messages in the browser console? (You can access it by opening a Web page where the extension should be running and pressing F12 then going to the console tab)
5. Do you see any error messages in the background page for the extension? (You can access it by navigating to edge://extensions/, finding "10ten Japanese Reader (Rikaichamp)", clicking "Background page" and then navigating to the console tab)

Thank you for any help you can offer!

[ariskoutris]

1. It's both. The icon doesn't toggle between on and off and the popup stops showing up. Actually, I did some more testing and discovered that I can actually deactivate the extension normally but then it's not possible to turn it back on when the bug occurs. However, by navigating to a browser window that is on a different virtual desktop I can freely re-enable the extension.
2. Yes, I have. I have uBlock Origin and an extension that bypasses paywalls among others. Could they be the cause? I would test it myself by disabling them, but it could be days until the bug occurs again.
3. No it happens on all sites. To be more specific, it happens to all tabs that belong to the same window.
4. No, there are no error messages on the console.
5. No errors here either.

Hope that you find this information useful!

[birtles]

Hi!

I'm really sorry I took so long to respond (travel and health got in the way).

It sounds like there is something going on that is terminating the background extension page. This might be an Edge-specific behavior since I haven't heard of anyone experiencing this in Firefox or Chrome or it might be specific to both and Edge/Chrome and not many people use virtual desktops.

I tried reproducing it but haven't been successful. I think you mentioned that sometimes it takes days to reproduce so perhaps that's not surprising.

I'm at a bit of a loss for how to even debug this one since it's so hard to reproduce. If you notice any circumstances that make it more likely to occur that would be a huge help.

Sorry for the delay and sorry for the annoyance too.