Google Rolls Out Silent Chrome Experiment That Breaks Enterprise Setups

Google Rolls Out Silent Chrome Experiment That Breaks Enterprise Setups

Google’s Chrome browser has always had a very quick update cycle, but there are multiple release channels if you don’t want to live on the cutting edge and deal with bugs. Google also lets IT administrators control updates on their networks. However, the browser maker ruffled some feathers this week when it rolled out an experimental feature that broke Chrome on many remote enterprise environments like Citrix.

IT staff began noticing issues early this week when thousands of machines started showing blank white tabs in Chrome. Users were unable to access the browser at all, causing work in some offices to grind to a halt. It was unclear what caused the widespread issues at first as most IT administrators control when Chrome updates roll out inside their network. Google, however, took the liberty of enabling a new feature on a subset of machines, even those on managed networks.

The culprit, it seems, is a feature called WebContents Occlusion. Google designed this feature to reduce resource usage when Chrome tabs aren’t visible. For example, if you move another window over top of Chrome, the browser can suspend your tabs and revive them as soon as they’re visible again. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

According to Google Chrome engineer David Bienvenu, the WebContents Occlusion flag has been in beta for about five months. Google turned the feature on for about one percent of stable users for a month, and it didn’t get any complaints. It began pushing WebContents Occlusion to more devices on Tuesday morning, which kicked off the trouble.

Google Rolls Out Silent Chrome Experiment That Breaks Enterprise Setups

It seems that the feature doesn’t understand the way remote access clients like Citrix and Microsoft RDP render the browser. So, Chrome thinks there’s something on top of it and suspends tabs. People began calling this the “White Screen of Death” in a nod to the infamous blue screen of death that indicates a Windows crash. That’s a big problem for companies that have thousands of workers on Citrix who rely on the Chrome browser.

Google rolled back the change on Thursday after lengthy discussion threads popped up on Google’s support forums. IT workers are understandably annoyed that Google pushed a silent feature update to stable devices that broke everything. In many cases, companies spent hours attempting to troubleshoot their own setups before realizing it was a widespread Chrome issue. Hopefully, the Chrome team is more careful with flipping flags in the stable version going forward.

Continue reading

Space Mining Gets 400 Percent Boost From Bacteria, ISS Experiments Show
Space Mining Gets 400 Percent Boost From Bacteria, ISS Experiments Show

We'll need lots of raw materials to sustain human endeavors on other planets, and a new project on the International Space Station demonstrates how we can make space mining over 400 percent more efficient.

Fermilab Experiment Hints at New Fundamental Force of Nature
Fermilab Experiment Hints at New Fundamental Force of Nature

The team working on Fermilab's Muon g−2 experiment has reported a tantalizing hint of a new type of physics. If confirmed, this would become the fifth fundamental force in the universe.

SpaceX Cargo Ship Delivers Fruit, Girl Scout Experiments to the ISS
SpaceX Cargo Ship Delivers Fruit, Girl Scout Experiments to the ISS

On Sunday SpaceX used its own Falcon 9 rocket to send a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station.

Scientists Create ‘Coldest Temperature Ever’ by Dropping Experiment From a Building
Scientists Create ‘Coldest Temperature Ever’ by Dropping Experiment From a Building

As far as we can tell from modern science, there's no upper limit to temperature. There sure is a lower limit, though. We call that absolute zero, measured as -273.15 °C (-459.67 °F). Scientists have yet to reach that limit in any experiment, but they're getting close. A team of physicists in Germany has gotten closer than ever before, reaching a temperature of 38 trillionths of a degree from absolute zero.