Chrome applescript execution error

[joshwcomeau]

When running npm run start on an ejected Create React App app, several minutes pass with it just sitting on Starting the development server... before finally displaying:

/path/to/scripts/utils/chrome.applescript:81:99: execution error: Google Chrome Canary got an

(not a typo, the message cuts off there).

Despite this warning message, the build does compile successfully, it just doesn't open in-browser.

I realize I may have voided my warranty by ejecting, and this isn't a high priority issue anyway. For anyone else encountering it, you can circumvent the lengthy timeout process by erasing the code in chrome.applescript; you'll lose the auto-open functionality, but that's not a big deal.

[gaearon]

I realize I may have voided my warranty by ejecting

What do you mean? Ejecting obviously should work, it’s a first-class feature. 😄

this isn't a high priority issue anyway

If it’s consistently reproducible it is a pretty high priority.
Can you look into why this happens?

[joshwcomeau]

Appreciate that! I kinda assumed that once you eject and start tweaking stuff, support for core functionality becomes much harder to guarantee.

But yeah, to clarify, everything was working fine post-eject until it wasn't; seemingly at random I started experiencing this issue.

I'm totally unfamiliar with applescript / working with OS applications, but I'll poke around and see if I can at least figure out where the problem lies :)

[gaearon]

Can you reproduce this with master?

[gaearon]

I think this might be fixed by 44b8313.

[gaearon]

Can you please try again with [email protected]?

[joshwcomeau]

Sorry for the delay!

Alright, so: it was still reproducible after creating a new project with master. I decided to muck about in the applescript, and the issue is no longer occurring, but I have no idea why o_O.

Details:

I updated create-react-app from GitHub's maser branch, created a new project, and ran npm run start. After 3-4 minutes of "Starting the development server...", a new browser tab opens and everything works. This is the case regardless of whether or not I've ejected.

When I cleared the contents of chrome.applescript, start-up time was much much faster; a few seconds instead of a few minutes.

Next, in the applescript, I tried to remove the loop that looks for pre-existing tabs. This had no effect.

Then, I simplified the logic at the bottom, from:

    if found then
      tell theTab to reload
      set index of theWindow to 1
      set theWindow's active tab index to theTabIndex
    else
      tell window 1
        activate
        make new tab with properties {URL:theURL}
      end tell
    end if

to:

      tell window 1
        activate
        make new tab with properties {URL:theURL}
      end tell

I thought maybe there was some weirdness with setting active windows/tabs, and I was somewhat right; this switch fixed the issue.

However, the issue isn't reproducible anymore. I undid all my changes, and it works perfectly, even in other projects.

If I had to guess, I'd assume that Chrome had some weird internal issue and wasn't able to comply with that request. I didn't think to try restarting chrome, but I suspect that may have fixed it as well.

[gaearon]

Closing for the lack of information.

If somebody experiences this please try to figure out a way to reproduce (e.g. take note of which windows are open, whether you are using stable or canary, etc).