Question

I’ve got a (WebRTC) web application runs across three tabs:

• Tab 1 resets the database (deleting any existing data, recreating initial data set)
• Tab 2 acts as a client #1, sending asynchronous requests to the server
• Tab 3 acts as a client #2, sending asynchronous requests to the server

What I’ve noticed is that if I reload Tab 1, one or both of the other tabs close themselves (as in, removed from the list of tabs in Chrome). I asked Chrome developers on IRC and they insist that Chrome will print “Aw snap!” in case of a tab crash but will not remove it from the list of tabs. I am fairly certain my own code isn’t closing the page.

How can I figure out what/who is closing the tab?

Answer 1

I feel retarded.

So, days of investigating this issue I discovered that my code was invoking a function in case of a network error and this function was invoking close(). Instead of resolving to my class’ close() method, it resolved to window.close() instead. Guess what happened next? 🙂 The tab closed.

What made this problem particularly difficult were two Chrome-specific bugs:

• http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=170757
• http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=170760

In short: window.close() works when it shouldn’t, and when it fails it does so silently.

Anyway, I consider this matter closed. I hope this helps others avoid making the same mistake in the future.