Extension no longer visible and working
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Apologies if this isn't the correct venue to ask this or if it's a Chrome issue. I've been running this extension on Chrome OS for quite some time without any significant issues. Occasionally the Smart Card Connector blocks USB access to my key under a Crouton chroot, and I have to kill it, but otherwise things work well.
Recently I tried logging into a site with ctrl-shift-p and the extension didn't launch. The icon is also no longer in my toolbar. The extension shows as installed and enabled in chrome://extensions.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling both this extension and the Smart Card connector, no change. The icon still doesn't appear.
I'm fairly new to Chrome and Chrome OS. Tips on how to debug this? Are there any logs I can use to determine why the extension doesn't appear to have an icon even though it should, and even though it shows as installed and enabled? I've googled for a possible generic solution but can't find anything. I also don't know of another extension that is behaving like this.
I'm using Neverware Chrome OS 72.4. It isn't official, but again it has worked fine for quite some time so should work. The only change I've made recently apart from removing/reinstalling both this and the connector was killing the connector in Task Manager, but I've confirmed that the connector now works once more.
As an aside, if you know of a way to get the connector to release access to the USB hardware so Linux tools in a chroot can use it, that'd be helpful. Thanks!
I've enabled this extension to run in incognito mode. Interestingly, if I open an incognito window, the extension appears and works there.
So I guess I'll disable everything and see if enabling one extension blocks this from working. I didn't think one extension could interfere with another like that.
I've enabled this extension to run in incognito mode. Interestingly, if I open an incognito window, the extension appears and works there.
So I guess I'll disable everything and see if enabling one extension blocks this from working. I didn't think one extension could interfere with another like that.
It is indeed surprising, but certainly not impossible.
The only general technique available to debug such issues seems to be to go to chrome://extensions, enable Developer Mode and inspect the views of the extension. Any message printed to the Developer Console could be helpful in getting to the bottom of this issue, should it return.
If you find out which extension is responsible for the issue you are encountering, please let me know.
As an aside, if you know of a way to get the connector to release access to the USB hardware so Linux tools in a chroot can use it, that'd be helpful. Thanks!
I don't, but releasing access to smart cards is something most applications (such as gpg itself) tend to avoid. The reason is that some smart cards, after being presented with a valid PIN, will remain in an authenticated state indefinitely (i.e., until a power cycle). Malicious smart card applications could abuse this authenticated state when given the chance to.
But the best place to get a definite answer from is the Smart Card Connector's GitHub repo. It's quite likely that you will get a quick response from emaxx@ if you open an issue there.
OK, so not sure what the ultimate cause was--fixing access to my passwords was my top priority--but I disabled all extensions and smart-pass reappeared. I then set about re-enabling them one at a time. Eventually everything was enabled, including smart-pass, and things worked once more. I didn't see any console logs on the background page.
Apologies for not trying harder to find the root cause. If this were something other than critical access to passwords, I'd have tried a bit harder. :)