How can I resolve or report an issue happening while recording a task to create a custom robot?

When you're creating a custom robot and you press Start Recording, the browser extension opens a new window for you to visually show a robot the task you're trying to automate. Let's see what you should do if you experience any issues there.

When you try to create a new custom robot instead of using prebuilt robots, Browse AI uses a browser extension to let you easily teach your robot how to find and extract data for you. Here, we tell you about issues that have been reported recently and then tell you the best way you can communicate the issue to us so we can investigate and quickly come up with a solution for you.

Issues reported recently

Error after pressing Start Recording: New tab was not created or does not have an ID

An error that has been recently reported is "New tab was not created or does not have an ID." (or a variation of that). Our engineering team is actively investigating this issue. What we have found so far is that this is caused by the following Chrome error when we try to open a new window for recording the task:

Invalid value for bounds. Bounds must be at least 50% within visible screen space.

This error is not documented by Chrome team anywhere we researched. But it seem to happen when an extension tries to open a window that is not at least 50% visible (meaning over 50% of it is outside the visible screen). We suspect that this occurs when there are more than one displays, and the extension uses the larger display's size to calculate the size of the window that should be opened, but Chrome tries to open the window in a smaller display and that causes this error.

While we are working on a solution, a quick work-around is to:

1. Only have a single Chrome window open. Open your Browse AI dashboard in it. Move the Chrome window to the monitor with the smaller resolution. Then click on Start Recording.

2. Before you press Start Recording, resize the window to make it smaller. Browse AI uses the dashboard window's size by default as the size for the recording window, so if you resize the window smaller, there is less chance this error can occur.

3. Make sure you have the most recent browser extension version installed. It should be at least version 1.4.5.You can check your Chrome extension version by navigating to `chrome://extensions`.

If even after this work-around, you are still getting this error, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this page to report the issue.

The recording window appears, but it looks blank. Or the site loads, but the recording robot does not show up.

Due to the inherent complexity of the browser extension and to create the best user experience possible, we have had to use beta Chrome APIs that are not completely stable yet. Because of that, it is a known issue that every 30 or 40 times you record a task, the extension could crash and when that happens, either the recording window turns blank or it loads without the robot visually recording your actions.

When this happens, you should close the recording window and try again. If you try 3 times and it fails every time, then it must be another issue. We have had a handful of reports of this recently and we would like to investigate, but we need further information to be able to do that. Please report the issue using the instructions at the bottom of this page.

How to report Chrome extension issues

First, please scroll up on this page and check out the recently reported issues. If the issue you are encountering does not exist there, follow the steps below:

  1. Delete the Browse AI Chrome extension and re-install it. Make sure the version that is installed matches the most recent version you see here.
  2. Open your Browse AI dashboard and try to create the robot. Press Start Recording.
  3. If the recording window does not appear, or it appears but there is an issue, send us an email with the following attachment files and a description of what is happening, and we'll get back to you:

Dashboard console logs (only if the recording window does not open at all)

  1. Right-click on the Start Recording Task button. Press Inspect.
  2. In the panel that opens, go to the Console tab.
  3. Right-click on a log or the blank area within the console and press Save as 
  4. Download the file with its original name and attach it to your support email.

Chrome extension background logs

  1. Open a new tab in Chrome. Enter the following address: chrome://extensions
  2. Search for Browse AI. When you find the extension, click on background page right above the buttons. 

  3. In the window that opens, go to the Console tab, right-click on a log or the blank area, and click on Save as:

  4. Download the file with its original name and attach it to your support email.

Recording window console logs and network logs (only needed if the recording window does open)

  1. In the recording window, right-click on the robot or anywhere else if the robot is not visible, then press Inspect. This will open a panel in a new window. 

  2. Without closing the panel, right-click again on the recording window, somewhere blank with no text or image, and press Reload. 

  3. If the issue happens when you take some actions (like after capturing a text), take those actions while the panel is open until you hit the issue again. This way we make sure that all errors are included in the logs you export.
  4. In the Inspection panel you opened previously, go to the Console tab. Right-click on a log or the blank area within the console and press Save as. Download the file with its original name and attach it to your support email.
  5. Then go to the Network tab in the panel. Right-click on one of the entries and click on Save all as HAR with content. Download the file with its original name and attach it to your support email. 

The attachment files above will give us a great amount of information about the issue you encountered and help our engineering team investigate it.

In addition to the above, if you would like to provide more information, you can record a screen recording of the actions you take and the issue you encounter using free software like Loom. Loom will give you a link to the recording that you can easily include in your support request email. This does not replace the 4 attachments above, but it does add more context around them that could help our engineering team.

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