chrome.webNavigation

Description
Use the chrome.webNavigation API to receive notifications about the status of navigation requests in-flight.
Permissions
webNavigation

Manifest #

All chrome.webNavigation methods and events require you to declare the "webNavigation" permission in the extension manifest. For example:

{
  "name": "My extension",
  ...
  "permissions": [
    "webNavigation"
  ],
  ...
}

Examples #

You can find simple examples of using the tabs module in the examples/api/webNavigation directory. For other examples and for help in viewing the source code, see Samples.

Event order #

For a navigation that is successfully completed, events are fired in the following order:

onBeforeNavigate -> onCommitted -> onDOMContentLoaded -> onCompleted

Any error that occurs during the process results in an onErrorOccurred event. For a specific navigation, there are no further events fired after onErrorOccurred.

If a navigating frame contains subframes, its onCommitted is fired before any of its children's onBeforeNavigate; while onCompleted is fired after all of its children's onCompleted.

If the reference fragment of a frame is changed, a onReferenceFragmentUpdated event is fired. This event can fire any time after onDOMContentLoaded, even after onCompleted.

If the history API is used to modify the state of a frame (e.g. using history.pushState(), a onHistoryStateUpdated event is fired. This event can fire any time after onDOMContentLoaded.

If a navigation was triggered via Chrome Instant or Instant Pages, a completely loaded page is swapped into the current tab. In that case, an onTabReplaced event is fired.

Relation to webRequest events #

There is no defined ordering between events of the webRequest API and the events of the webNavigation API. It is possible that webRequest events are still received for frames that already started a new navigation, or that a navigation only proceeds after the network resources are already fully loaded.

In general, the webNavigation events are closely related to the navigation state that is displayed in the UI, while the webRequest events correspond to the state of the network stack which is generally opaque to the user.

A note about tab IDs #

Not all navigating tabs correspond to actual tabs in Chrome's UI, e.g., a tab that is being pre-rendered. Such tabs are not accessible via the tabs API nor can you request information about them via webNavigation.getFrame or webNavigation.getAllFrames. Once such a tab is swapped in, an onTabReplaced event is fired and they become accessible via these APIs.

A note about timestamps #

It's important to note that some technical oddities in the OS's handling of distinct Chrome processes can cause the clock to be skewed between the browser itself and extension processes. That means that WebNavigation's events' timeStamp property is only guaranteed to be internally consistent. Comparing one event to another event will give you the correct offset between them, but comparing them to the current time inside the extension (via (new Date()).getTime(), for instance) might give unexpected results.

A note about frame IDs #

Frames within a tab can be identified by a frame ID. The frame ID of the main frame is always 0, the ID of child frames is a positive number. Once a document is constructed in a frame, its frame ID remains constant during the lifetime of the document. As of Chrome 49, this ID is also constant for the lifetime of the frame (across multiple navigations).

Due to the multi-process nature of Chrome, a tab might use different processes to render the source and destination of a web page. Therefore, if a navigation takes place in a new process, you might receive events both from the new and the old page until the new navigation is committed (i.e. the onCommitted event is send for the new main frame). In other words, it is possible to have more than one pending sequence of webNavigation events with the same frameId. The sequences can be distinguished by the processId key.

Also note that during a provisional load the process might be switched several times. This happens when the load is redirected to a different site. In this case, you will receive repeated onBeforeNavigate and onErrorOccurred events, until you receive the final onCommitted event.

Transition types and qualifiers #

The webNavigation API's onCommitted event has a transitionType and a transitionQualifiers property. The transition type is the same as used in the history API describing how the browser navigated to this particular URL. In addition, several transition qualifiers can be returned that further define the navigation.

The following transition qualifiers exist:

Transition qualifier	Description
"client_redirect"	One or more redirects caused by JavaScript or meta refresh tags on the page happened during the navigation.
"server_redirect"	One or more redirects caused by HTTP headers sent from the server happened during the navigation.
"forward_back"	The user used the Forward or Back button to initiate the navigation.
"from_address_bar"	The user initiated the navigation from the address bar (aka Omnibox).

Summary

Types
TransitionQualifier
TransitionType
Methods
getAllFrames
chrome.webNavigation.getAllFrames(details: object, callback: function)
getFrame
chrome.webNavigation.getFrame(details: object, callback: function)
Events
onBeforeNavigate
onCommitted
onCompleted
onCreatedNavigationTarget
onDOMContentLoaded
onErrorOccurred
onHistoryStateUpdated
onReferenceFragmentUpdated
onTabReplaced

Types

TransitionQualifier

Enum

"client_redirect", "server_redirect", "forward_back", or "from_address_bar"

TransitionType

Cause of the navigation. The same transition types as defined in the history API are used. These are the same transition types as defined in the history API except with "start_page" in place of "auto_toplevel" (for backwards compatibility).

Enum

"link", "typed", "auto_bookmark", "auto_subframe", "manual_subframe", "generated", "start_page", "form_submit", "reload", "keyword", or "keyword_generated"

Methods

getAllFrames

chrome.webNavigation.getAllFrames(details: object, callback: function)

Retrieves information about all frames of a given tab.

Parameters

details
object
Information about the tab to retrieve all frames from.
- tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab.
callback
function
The callback parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object[]) => {...}
- details
  object[]
  A list of frames in the given tab, null if the specified tab ID is invalid.
  errorOccurred
  boolean
  True if the last navigation in this frame was interrupted by an error, i.e. the onErrorOccurred event fired.
  frameId
  number
  The ID of the frame. 0 indicates that this is the main frame; a positive value indicates the ID of a subframe.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  url
  string
  The URL currently associated with this frame.

getFrame

chrome.webNavigation.getFrame(details: object, callback: function)

Retrieves information about the given frame. A frame refers to an <iframe> or a <frame> of a web page and is identified by a tab ID and a frame ID.

Parameters

details
object
Information about the frame to retrieve information about.
- frameId
  number
  The ID of the frame in the given tab.
- processId
  number optional
  Deprecated. Frames are now uniquely identified by their tab ID and frame ID; the process ID is no longer needed and therefore ignored.
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this tab.
- tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the frame is.
callback
function
The callback parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  Information about the requested frame, null if the specified frame ID and/or tab ID are invalid.
  errorOccurred
  boolean
  True if the last navigation in this frame was interrupted by an error, i.e. the onErrorOccurred event fired.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  url
  string
  The URL currently associated with this frame, if the frame identified by the frameId existed at one point in the given tab. The fact that an URL is associated with a given frameId does not imply that the corresponding frame still exists.

Events

onBeforeNavigate

chrome.webNavigation.onBeforeNavigate.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when a navigation is about to occur.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique for a given tab and process.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  Deprecated. The processId is no longer set for this event, since the process which will render the resulting document is not known until onCommit.
  The value of -1.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation is about to occur.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the browser was about to start the navigation, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  url
  string

onCommitted

chrome.webNavigation.onCommitted.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when a navigation is committed. The document (and the resources it refers to, such as images and subframes) might still be downloading, but at least part of the document has been received from the server and the browser has decided to switch to the new document.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the navigation was committed, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  transitionQualifiers
  TransitionQualifier[]
  A list of transition qualifiers.
  transitionType
  TransitionType
  Cause of the navigation.
  url
  string

onCompleted

chrome.webNavigation.onCompleted.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when a document, including the resources it refers to, is completely loaded and initialized.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the document finished loading, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  url
  string

onCreatedNavigationTarget

chrome.webNavigation.onCreatedNavigationTarget.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when a new window, or a new tab in an existing window, is created to host a navigation.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  sourceFrameId
  number
  The ID of the frame with sourceTabId in which the navigation is triggered. 0 indicates the main frame.
  sourceProcessId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for the source frame.
  sourceTabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation is triggered.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the url is opened
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the browser was about to create a new view, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  url
  string
  The URL to be opened in the new window.

onDOMContentLoaded

chrome.webNavigation.onDOMContentLoaded.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when the page's DOM is fully constructed, but the referenced resources may not finish loading.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the page's DOM was fully constructed, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  url
  string

onErrorOccurred

chrome.webNavigation.onErrorOccurred.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when an error occurs and the navigation is aborted. This can happen if either a network error occurred, or the user aborted the navigation.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  error
  string
  The error description.
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  Deprecated. The processId is no longer set for this event.
  The value of -1.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the error occurred, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  url
  string

onHistoryStateUpdated

chrome.webNavigation.onHistoryStateUpdated.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when the frame's history was updated to a new URL. All future events for that frame will use the updated URL.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the navigation was committed, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  transitionQualifiers
  TransitionQualifier[]
  A list of transition qualifiers.
  transitionType
  TransitionType
  Cause of the navigation.
  url
  string

onReferenceFragmentUpdated

chrome.webNavigation.onReferenceFragmentUpdated.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when the reference fragment of a frame was updated. All future events for that frame will use the updated URL.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  frameId
  number
  0 indicates the navigation happens in the tab content window; a positive value indicates navigation in a subframe. Frame IDs are unique within a tab.
  parentFrameId
  number
  The ID of the parent frame, or -1 if this is the main frame.
  processId
  number
  The ID of the process that runs the renderer for this frame.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab in which the navigation occurs.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the navigation was committed, in milliseconds since the epoch.
  transitionQualifiers
  TransitionQualifier[]
  A list of transition qualifiers.
  transitionType
  TransitionType
  Cause of the navigation.
  url
  string

onTabReplaced

chrome.webNavigation.onTabReplaced.addListener(listener: function)

Fired when the contents of the tab is replaced by a different (usually previously pre-rendered) tab.

Event

listener
function
The listener parameter should be a function that looks like this:
(details: object) => {...}
- details
  object
  replacedTabId
  number
  The ID of the tab that was replaced.
  tabId
  number
  The ID of the tab that replaced the old tab.
  timeStamp
  number
  The time when the replacement happened, in milliseconds since the epoch.