Invalid Manifest on Pixel Slate (Chrome OS)

Question

Users of my Chrome extension are reporting problems installing it on a Pixel Slate device. The error just says "Invalid Manifest", and the extension cannot be installed.

However, there is no such error on a Windows or OSX device, and the manifest seems to be valid based on my inspection.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem may be?

Manifest follows:

{
  "manifest_version": 2,

  "name": "ProTABS - Tab Management for Pro's",
  "short_name": "ProTABS",
  "description": "\"I got 99 problems, but a tab ain't one.\"  An intelligent tab manager for the everyday user.",
  "version": "1.5.1",

  "minimum_chrome_version": "55",

  "icons": {
    "16": "./static/icons/icon16.png",
    "32": "./static/icons/icon32.png",
    "48": "./static/icons/icon48.png",
    "128": "./static/icons/icon128.png"
  },

  "browser_action": {
    "default_popup": "frontend.html"
  },

  "background": {
    "page": "backend.html",
    "persistent": false
  },

  "commands": {
    "_execute_browser_action": {
      "suggested_key": {
        "windows": "Ctrl+Shift+A",
        "mac": "Command+Shift+A",
        "linux": "Ctrl+Shift+A"
      }
    }
  },

  "permissions": ["tabs", "webNavigation", "storage", "alarms"]
}

JSON looks valid. Could be a bug in ChromeOS. Try investigating in an OS emulator. — wOxxOm, Jan 22 '19 at 10:16
Thanks for the suggestion, I figured out what it was. The `suggested_key` section needed either a `default` key or a platform-specific key for chrome os. Once I added that the manifest was accepted. — Bogdan Kiselitsa, Jan 27 '19 at 02:26

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 27 '19 at 05:02

I discovered the cause of the problem after taking a suggestion to try the extension in a Chrome OS Emulator and attempting to load it as a Packed Extension.

In this case, the bad manifest was caused by the section:

"commands": {
  "_execute_browser_action": {
    "suggested_key": {
      "windows": "Ctrl+Shift+A",
      "mac": "Command+Shift+A",
      "linux": "Ctrl+Shift+A"
    }
  }
}

The problem was that chromeos was not specified as a platform in the map of suggested_key and a default key was not specified.

In my case, I was able to simplify the setting as follows (because on Mac, Chrome maps Ctrl to Command):

"commands": {
  "_execute_browser_action": {
    "suggested_key": {
      "default": "Ctrl+Shift+A",
    }
  }
}

Adding a default ensures that the manifest will be valid for any future platforms as well, so long as they have keys compatible with those in the default.

Invalid Manifest on Pixel Slate (Chrome OS)

1 Answers1