Using both Chrome and Edge. Issues with Extension

[JamesACA]

Hello everyone!

Today we deployed a new process which needs to use both Chrome and MSFT Edge. The reason for this is that the internal website we are using has issue with Chrome so some portions need to be done in Edge. The reason the whole process is not done in Edge is that it would take much more work as the majority of the objects already existed.

Back to the question, in production we enabled the Blue Prism Edge extension and immediately we saw issues with our processes where they said "Cannot find Chrome extension". I ran a few tests, I manually ran a process, then got this error. Turned off the edge extension, then ran the process again to open the webpage and it worked. I turned on the Edge Extension mid process and it worked for the rest of the way. I made the process have an exception so it would close the page and open it again and it once again encountered the Chrome extension issue. Once I turned off the Edge Extension and relaunched the website it continued working as expected.

My assumption would be that this is a port issue, however when I researched online I did not see anyone with this issue. I would either get Chrome Extension issue or Edge Extension issues, however not one due to the other.

Opinions?

I would make this into a "Question to be answered" however that does not allow for replies if someone asks me a question.

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James Costa-Arruda
RPA Developer
IN-RGY
Montreal QC
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[steven.boggs]

Hi James,

Due to the way the Blue Prism browser extensions work, automating two different browser types simultaneously is not supported with one exception -- when automating Microsoft Edge running in IE compatibility mode.

When attempting to automate any combination of the Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers within a single process, this becomes possible only if the browsers are automated in sequence rather than simultaneously, provided that the browsers are terminated "cleanly" between runs (i.e. no orphaned pages are left open when the browser session is closed). Source KB: "Does Blue Prism Enterprise support multiple different browsers in a process?" 

Based on your stated approach, you may need to re-design your Process to allow for a "clean" shutdown of one browser before moving on to the other browser.

Our KB, "What are the key considerations when working with Modern Browser Automations?" contains more best-practice guidance for working with our browser extensions as well.

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Steve Boggs
Senior Product Support Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, TX
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[Joshna_16]

Hi James,

Can you try launch Chrome/Edge Application through 
VBO : "Utility- Environment"
Action : Start Process

Inputs :
Application : Chrome.exe for edge msedge.exe
Arguments : URL

After launching, attach the application.

Issue chrome extenstion not detected or installed error may not occur by this method

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Joshna Dammala
RPA Developer
Asia/Kolkata
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[JamesACA]

Hello Steve,

Thanks for the reply! I will take that into note, and do that. However the issue I am having in particular is the initial Launch of Chrome. At this point in the process nothing has been done yet. The first step is opening chrome and it fail there. In this situation it is not being used simultaneously. Would this still be problematic?

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James Costa-Arruda
RPA Developer
IN-RGY
Montreal QC
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[david.l.morris]

There are a lot of things people will suggest to try, and quite honestly none of them will work all the time, and some of the suggestions are from minimal testing that often result in placebo fixes. I don't mean to downplay suggestions that you'll receive. It's worth trying them. But I have been closely following this issue for a couple of years, and I have yet to find a way to make the browser extensions work all the time. Blue Prism has been improving this, but it's somewhat new territory, and they're switching to a much better technique in v7.x (native messaging host).

So, I have a suggestion that might sound ridiculous, but I've verified it so many times that I can 100% say this is a thing but can't guarantee it's your issue.

Try to reproduce the issue of the chrome extension or the edge extension not working. Now, if it's always the "extension could not be detected" issue, then I'm less confident that this will work for you, but it's still possible. Anyway, get blue prism and the browser into the state where the browser extension isn't found or isn't working. Then manually (or you could even automate this with a global mouse click) click into the browser and see if browser mode suddenly starts working. I have found this to be a thing in both v6.x and v7.x, but it is very difficult to reproduce so it's hard for me to show it to BP. See if you can make browser mode work purely by clicking into the window and then retrying the operation or trying attach or whatever the case is. I'm curious to find as many people as possible who find this issue as well.

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Dave Morris
3Ci at Southern Company
Atlanta, GA
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[JamesACA]

Hello Dave,

I will try this out! Even thought it sounds ridiculous I believe this can work. We had a similar issue before (before using EDGE with Chrome) and our workaround was to refresh the webpage. Weird interactions, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Thank you,

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James Costa-Arruda
Technical Lead
-
Montreal QC
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[JamesACA]

Hello Joshna,

This is the workaround we attempted for now and it seems to be working! Thank you for that. Hopefully the stability stays in the coming weeks!

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James Costa-Arruda
Technical Lead
-
Montreal QC
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[Joshna_16]

Hello James,

I hope it works well.


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Joshna Dammala
RPA Developer
Asia/Kolkata
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