Persist data not working (Windows11, Chrome)

[placoderm]

Describe the bug

I'm reading through the new docs and am trying to implement persist-data

I have this in my web-ext.config.ts file (which is in my root):

// web-ext.config.ts
export default defineRunnerConfig({
  chromiumArgs: ["--user-data-dir=./.wxt/chrome-data"],
});

I saved, restarted VSCode and ran pmpm dev. There was no new directory added to .wxt for /chrome-data/

I installed a plugin in the dev launched Chrome, cancelled the dev, restarted everything, and the plugin was not there.

Please see the discussion on https://discord.com/channels/1212416027611365476/1290064175791472670

This problem seems to be exclusive to Windows.

Reproduction

I also tried:

// wxt.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  runner: { chromiumArgs: ["--user-data-dir=./.wxt/chrome-data"] },
});

Still with no success.

Steps to reproduce

No response

System Info

System:
    OS: Windows 11 10.0.22631
    CPU: (16) x64 AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with Radeon Graphics
    Memory: 2.78 GB / 15.33 GB
  Binaries:
    Node: 18.17.1 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE
    npm: 10.4.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD
    pnpm: 9.11.0 - ~\AppData\Roaming\npm\pnpm.CMD
  Browsers:
    Edge: Chromium (127.0.2651.74)
    Internet Explorer: 11.0.22621.3527
    Chrome: Version 129.0.6668.71 (Official Build) (64-bit)
  npmPackages:
    wxt: ^0.19.1 => 0.19.10

Used Package Manager

pnpm

Validations

• [X] Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• [X] Read the docs.
• [X] Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• [X] Check that this is a concrete bug. For Q&A open a GitHub Discussion or join our Discord Chat Server.
• [X] The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.

[aklinker1]

Thanks for the report. If anyone has windows and can try to reproduce this, I'd appreciate this. It works on Linux and Mac.

[placoderm]

I should also emphasize that I may be doing something completely wrong on my end. Would be wonderful if another Windows user could test.

[Judimax]

Greetings I can conform that this is the case as well on my windows computer

[aklinker1]

@Judimax Can you try and launch Chrome directly and mess around with the CLI flags to see if you can find something that stores chrome data in a different directory?

chrome.exe --user-data-dir=chrome-data

[Judimax]

im in the discord if you want to hop on a call to debug?

[1natsu172]

@placoderm @Judimax _kdme_ that windows user, has posted something like this before, which may help to solve something.

• https://discord.com/channels/1212416027611365476/1268068051874742312/1268499442831724676
• https://discord.com/channels/1212416027611365476/1270035277087248457/1270648007800520705

[Judimax]

Greetings this seems to only work for Profile 1 any other profile I get, and Profile 1 seems to be a dummy profile of sorts ERROR connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:58396 6:45:35 a.m.

at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (node:net:1607:16)

[aklinker1]

im in the discord if you want to hop on a call to debug?

@Judimax Sorry, was checking in on things before I went to bed.

That said, I forgot that I had a windows VM on my work computer, so I played around. First try got it working:

chrome.exe --user-data-dir="C:\\Users\Username\Downloads\chrome-data"

And it worked just fine. C:\\Users\Username\Downloads\chrome-data did NOT exist beforehand, chrome created it when it started up.

Also tried with a relative path, as shown in the example:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir=".\.wxt\chrome-data"

But this doesn't work. It shows an alert when starting up that "Google Chrome cannot read and write to its data directory: ..wxt\chrome-data"

Same error with and without the leading ".". Also throws the error if I create the .wxt directory and the .wxt/chrome-data directory.

However, it does work if I use an absolute path:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\Username\Downloads\test\.wxt\chrome-data"

So it appears the only requirement is you use an absolute path. And I put it in quotes just to be safe.

---

That means this should work for windows users:

// web-ext.config.ts
import { resolve } from 'node:path';

export default defineRunnerConfig({
  chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`
});

I will update the docs

[placoderm]

  chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`],

So that didn't work for me. Here is my `web-ext.config.ts:

import { defineRunnerConfig } from "wxt";
import { resolve } from "node:path";

export default defineRunnerConfig({
  chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`],
});

When I run that the profile that chrome uses is still here:

C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp-web-ext--13824-DkSV2bod0aOw\Default

I try adding bookmarks to the bookmark bar and starting again. When I restart they are gone.

[aklinker1]

@placoderm can you try quitting chrome completely from the task manager before running the command?

Also, try running Chrome directly:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\Username\Downloads\test\.wxt\chrome-data"

[placoderm]

When I run in chrome directly as you suggest it works, creating a new profile. Running again, it goes to that same profile.

I tried quitting chrome from taskmanager and running with

  chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`],

in web-ext.config.ts. Still didn't work.

I copied the chrome-data the commandline created in the downloads folder to the .wxt folder in my project. Still didn't use that.

[aklinker1]

I copied the chrome-data the commandline created in the downloads folder to the .wxt folder in my project. Still didn't use that.

Wait, hold on, so it did create a chrome-data folder at some point?

[placoderm]

Wait, hold on, so it did create a chrome-data folder at some point?

Yes, when I did this on the command line:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="C:\Users\Username\Downloads\test\.wxt\chrome-data"

As expected it created a new profile and launched chrome. Sorry that wasn't more clear.

[aklinker1]

OK, can you run wxt --debug and share the output? Make sure to keep

chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`],

in your config file. You can ctrl+C out of the command once the browser opens.

Specifically, there should be a section at the very bottom containing the web-ext config, that's all I care about. Will look something like this:

⚙ web-ext config: { console: undefined,                                                                    7:12:35 PM
  devtools: undefined,
  startUrl: [ 'https://duckduckgo.com' ],
  keepProfileChanges: undefined,
  chromiumBinary: undefined,
  chromiumProfile: undefined,
  chromiumPref: { devtools: { synced_preferences_sync_disabled: [Object] } },
  args: undefined,
  target: 'chromium',
  sourceDir:
   '/home/aklinker1/Development/github.com/wxt-dev/wxt/packages/wxt-demo/.output/chrome-mv3',
  noReloadManagerExtension: true,
  noReload: true,
  noInput: true }
⚙ web-ext options: { shouldExitProgram: false }

[placoderm]

Here you go…

⚙ web-ext config: { console: undefined,                                               1:26:41 PM
  devtools: undefined,
  startUrl:
   [ 'https://suttacentral.net',
     'https://suttacentral.net/mn82/en/sujato',
     'https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/mn25-absent-from-bh-bodhis-classes/36183' ],
  keepProfileChanges: undefined,
  chromiumBinary: undefined,
  chromiumProfile: undefined,
  chromiumPref: { devtools: { synced_preferences_sync_disabled: [Object] } },
  args:
   [ '--user-data-dir="C:\\Users\\learn\\Videos\\PROJECTS\\SC-plugin-parts\\SuttaCentral-Enhancement-Extension\\.wxt\\chrome-data"' ],
  target: 'chromium',
  sourceDir:
   'C:\\Users\\learn\\Videos\\PROJECTS\\SC-plugin-parts\\SuttaCentral-Enhancement-Extension\\.output\\chrome-mv3',
  noReloadManagerExtension: true,
  noReload: true,
  noInput: true }
⚙ web-ext options: { shouldExitProgram: false }                                       1:26:41 PM   
✔ Opened browser in 795 ms                                                            1:26:41 PM   

And here is my exact web-ext.config.ts:

import { defineRunnerConfig } from "wxt";
import { resolve } from "node:path";

export default defineRunnerConfig({
  startUrls: ["https://suttacentral.net", "https://suttacentral.net/mn82/en/sujato", "https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/mn25-absent-from-bh-bodhis-classes/36183"],
  chromiumArgs: [`--user-data-dir="${resolve(".wxt/chrome-data")}"`],
});

[aklinker1]

Huh, alright yeah, no idea why it doesn't work for you. That all looks good. It's clearly using an absolute path, and WXT is properly passing the arguments through to web-ext.

[placoderm]

I will post on Discord and see if there is a windows user there who can test.

[1natsu172]

@aklinker1 Why don't you pass the example zip you are testing to @placoderm ? You two are not working on the same reproduction, right? Just to be safe, the less difference the better for debug.

[breadgrocery]

userDataDir is not retrived from chromeFlags.

chromium.js in module web-ext-run:

  let {
    userDataDir,
    profileDirName
  } = await ChromiumExtensionRunner.getProfilePaths(this.params.chromiumProfile);

......

  this.chromiumInstance = await this.chromiumLaunch({
    enableExtensions: true,
    chromePath: chromiumBinary,
    chromeFlags,
    startingUrl,
    userDataDir,
    // Ignore default flags to keep the extension enabled.
    ignoreDefaultFlags: true,
    prefs: this.getPrefs(),
    port
  });

So this works, but it requires that the specified directory already exists, as it will not be created automatically like the temporary directory.

  runner: {
    ...
    chromiumProfile: "./.wxt/chrome-data",
    ...
  },

[szymski]

I had a similar problem with configuring persistence in Google Chrome on Windows 11. What the docs are saying currently seems to be totally irrelevant. I can also confirm that what works for me is this (in web-ext.config.ts file):

import { resolve } from 'node:path';
import { defineRunnerConfig } from 'wxt';

export default defineRunnerConfig({
    // I'm not even sure if path resolving is required on W11
    chromiumProfile: `${resolve('.wxt/chrome-data')}`,
});

Only chromiumProfile needs to be set as the target directory for configs. That's it. Nothing else is requried. Hope it helps anybody :)

Either the docs need to be updated or the browser runner needs some changes. At this point, documentation is very misleading on this one and indeed confuses newbies.

[aklinker1]

So... Should I just update the docs to use chromiumProfile instead of --user-data-dir? Does just using a profile keep you logged into sites from previous sessions?

On mac, I know it doesn't work like that. Since it copies files into a temp dir, logins don't persist, and you have to log in every time. That's why --user-data-dir works, it doesn't move or copy the files, so you stay logged in.

Do we also need to recommend using keepProfileChanges alongside chromiumProfile?

export default defineRunnerConfig({
    chromiumProfile: `${resolve('.wxt/chrome-data')}`,
    keepProfileChanges: true,
});

If so, I think it makes sense to create option that automatically applies the required config based on the current operating system.

export default defineRunnerConfig({
    preset: "persist"
    // Windows:
    // chromiumProfile: `${resolve('.wxt/chrome-data')}`,
    // keepProfileChanges: true,
    // Mac/Linux:
    // chromiumArgs: ["--user-data-dir=./.wxt/chrome-data"],
});

[kmanev073]

I can confirm this combination works on Windows 11:

export default defineRunnerConfig({
    chromiumProfile: `${resolve('.wxt/chrome-data')}`,
    keepProfileChanges: true,
});

You need keepProfileChanges set to true otherwise the profile is new everytime chrome is started.

[aklinker1]

Alright, I've updated the docs. Gonna close this now that we've found a solution.

[placoderm]

Thanks for all your hard work!