Browser Mode dependent on URL formatting?

[JeffreyMcCormic]

Dear BP Community,
      I ran into an interesting issue regarding 'Browser Mode' today that I am curious if anyone else has seen before.  For reference, here is the current environment -

Blue Prism v6.8.1 / Chrome Extension v2.1.0 / Chrome v104.05

We have an internal website that we are in the stages of converting from Chrome to IE.  However, I noticed that browser mode simply would not locate any elements on any page, regardless of how it was loaded.  I did some additional comparison and found that unlike other sites we work with, it was NOT triggering the URL redirect upon launching Chrome.  As such, this explained the browser mode issue.

I tried all sorts of ways to ensure BP and the extension were functioning properly, but browser mode was still a bust.  Finally, I tried launching the object using ONLY a different URL (in this case google.com) and this time, browser mode worked.  I also discovered that I could then navigate OVER to the original page that was giving me issues and browser mode was able to work as expected.

Only thing, is why?  The ONLY difference between these two URLs is the formatting - google was using "http://www.google.com" and our internal site was using "http://reit6-cdvsec-prd" - is there something in the formatting of that 2nd URL where browser mode did not work that triggers the extension properly?

I apologize for the length of the post but this was the first time I've come across an issue with browser mode that was not explained away as a problem with the initial setup.  Please let me know if I can provide any additional information to assist.

[Angelo.Carcagno]

Hello Jeffrey McCormick,

You seem to have stumbled upon and resolved a common issue we see here on the support side via our tickets. We are unsure of the reason for it yet but we would suggest keeping the workaround you have placed as part of this automation as we do for many customers. When Blue Prism launches Internal Web Pages usually it has an issue loading it due to a variety of reasons. While we are looking into how to improve this our best solution right now is to add a public page ( i.e google.com) to the launch of the browser and then have it redirect to the page you are looking for in your automation as you have done. In doing this you should no longer see this issue.