Extension is greyed out

[MrAtheist]

Description of the issue: Extension is greyed out + unable to access about/preference… click on either one = instant death

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.

I was trying out this extension, and it borked the extension and preferences tab. “Downloads” and Task Manager dont seem to be affected.

The “faulty” extension isnt there when i checked out ~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/Extensions/. So im not sure whats going on… is there any way to force reset the extensions from the terminal?

Luckily (or surprisingly), i installed the same extension on real chromium browser and it didnt bork…

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):

Expected result:

Reproduces how often:

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):

Version 1.26.77 Chromium: 91.0.4472.164 (Official Build) (x86_64)

Additional Information:

[289wk]

“Default” is the default profile:

~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default/

Might you have another Brave Browser profile?

Also, does folder “cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei” exist, here:

/Users/user_shortname/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei

If folder “cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei” exists, might you include here, a screenshot of its contents?

[MrAtheist]

Default is my only profile, and “cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei” is not found under Brave-Browser/

On the other hand, heres the output of the extension from chromium:

@289wk

~/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default/Extensions/cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei/1.33.0_0$ ls -la
total 8
drwx------@ 8 mratheist staff 256 16 Aug 00:57 .
drwx------@ 3 mratheist staff 96 16 Aug 00:57 …
drwx------@ 13 mratheist staff 416 16 Aug 00:57 _locales
drwx------@ 3 mratheist staff 96 16 Aug 00:57 _metadata
drwx------@ 7 mratheist staff 224 16 Aug 00:57 build
-rw-------@ 1 mratheist staff 3754 16 Aug 00:57 manifest.json
drwx------@ 6 mratheist staff 192 16 Aug 00:57 src
drwx------@ 8 mratheist staff 256 16 Aug 00:57 static

Is there any hack to force reset the browser/extension via terminal…?

[MrAtheist]

Also just found out that New Window is disabled as well, im thinking just to nuke the entire browser and download from scratch…

[elder-n00b]

@MrAtheist

im thinking just to nuke the entire browser and download from scratch…

Try make a new profile first, perhaps that will do.
This way you won’t lose / have to export and backup any existing bookmarks and other data, you can deal with those later.

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edit: TL;DR
I just noticed you have Brave 1.26.77, current release is 1.28.105 and I could not reproduce the issue. I’d try updating if possible.
BTW, macOS here too, 10.11.6 .

[Mattches]

@MrAtheist,
Just to confirm, you also do not see the extension appear in Brave under brave://extensions?

[MrAtheist]

Hmm i cant even open that up, like the whole browser is possessed somehow… “Bookmark manager” is disabled as well, heres the gif of it showing instant death…

gif

[Mattches]

Can you try creating a new browser profile and test to see if the issue persists in the new profile?

Create a new profile to help Troubleshoot

(authored by @sampson) For those impacted by performance and/or memory issues, here are a couple steps to take which will help us in helping you. As many here have stated, it’s good to disable extensions. Extensions are third-party applications; it’s entirely possible an extension could eat up tons of memory. By removing them from the equation, we greatly simplify the task of identifying the problem itself. Create a Testing Profile Testing with a private window is good, but this usually leave…

[elder-n00b]

Not sure if it’s useful, I located a /Users/username/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Profile 5/Extensions/cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei.

searchfs

[MrAtheist]

Yes, the issue persists with the new profile. Not sure if this has something to do with incognito mode…? Ive set it to default via this thread.

https://recordit.co/fZSaQMz0jX

ive also tried to find ./Brave-Browser/ -type d -iname cbnaodkpfinfiipjblikofhlhlcickei but nothing pops up

[Mattches]

@MrAtheist,
I would definitely try switching back to standard windows to see if the issue is specific to launching in private by default.

[elder-n00b]

Oh yes it does!
I just followed that procedure, and now I have those menu items disabled.
Let me see if I get the rest of the problems too…
edit: more or less. “Preferences” from the application menu gets me to about://blank .
edit: I removed the IncognitoModeAvailability, removed the extension, put back IncognitoModeAvailability and still have those menu items disabled.

cd ~/Library/Preferences
defaults delete com.brave.Browser IncognitoModeAvailability

[MrAtheist]

ok yea, that seems to be the culprit…

defaults write com.brave.Browser IncognitoModeAvailability -integer 2

It would seem like “2” is forced to incognito only, and any pages destined to non-incognito mode (about/preferences/extensions/bookmarks/etc…) freak out and die because they dont know what to do.

-integer 1 would be for regular mode only, and incognito is disabled.

So im switching back to -integer 0…

But it’s weird that ive set this up to 2 a long time ago and just bumped into this behavior…

Anyways, case closed! and thanks for all the help around this!

[elder-n00b]

Happy to know it’s solved.
I still wonder why those disabled items though.
No hint here: chromeenterprise.google/policies

edit: “New Tab” being disabled makes sense, now that I think… and the other ones too, being a policy it’s probably intended to prevent circumventing it.

more detailed docs at https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9302896?hl=en

edit: open -a "Brave Browser" --args --incognito
@MrAtheist