How Can I Keep My Chrome Extension's Service Worker Persistent?

Persistent Service Worker in Chrome Extension: A Guide

In Chrome, service worker (SW) persistence is not inherently supported. By design, SWs are designed to be unloaded after five minutes of inactivity, making it challenging to maintain a constant running service. In this article, we'll explore various workarounds to keep your SWs running and responsive to events.

Known Problems and Limitations

• Inactive and Unload Timers: SWs have a 30-second inactivity timer and a five-minute unload timer.
• Event Execution Issues: Chrome may not consistently wake up SWs for all webRequest events, especially in older versions.
• Frequent Event Handling: Handling frequent events like webRequest and webNavigation can cause excessive SW restarts, impacting performance negatively.
• Consecutive API Calls: Calling certain Chrome APIs consecutively can help extend the SW's lifetime, but this approach is considered a bug exploit.

Workarounds:

Bug Exploit (Chrome 110 ):

• Assigning the wrapped chrome.runtime.getPlatformInfo() call to a variable and calling it repeatedly keeps the SW running longer.

Offscreen API (Chrome 109 ):

• Create an offscreen document that sends a message to the SW every 30 seconds. This method currently provides an unlimited lifetime but may be revised in the future.

NativeMessaging API (Chrome 105 ):

• Connecting the SW to a nativeMessaging host keeps it running, even if the host crashes or closes.

WebSocket API (Chrome 116 ):

• Establish a WebSocket connection and exchange messages every 25 seconds to prevent inactivity.

Chrome Messaging API:

• Send a message from a dedicated tab to the SW every 30 seconds. This requires broad host permissions but avoids the need for native apps or APIs.

Dedicated Tab:

• Open a browser tab with an extension page that communicates with the SW. This approach mimics a persistent background page but consumes more memory and distracts the user.

Cautions:

• Excessive Resource Consumption: Use keep-alive mechanisms only when necessary and disable them once tasks are complete.
• State Management: Implement a strategy to save and restore the SW state in case of unexpected crashes.
• Persistent Assumption: Avoid persisting SWs for the sole purpose of simplifying state management. Use it primarily to enhance performance in cases where reconstructing state is expensive or in response to frequent events.

The above is the detailed content of How Can I Keep My Chrome Extension's Service Worker Persistent?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!