Chrome applescript execution error

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]

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).

[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.