How do I maintain persistent voice recording in my Chrome extension when the popup closes?

Below is some advice on how to keep your recording persistent even if the popup closes or the user changes tabs.

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Why Your Recording Stops

When you run your recording logic in a popup, the audio capture is tied to that page’s lifetime. When the popup is closed or loses focus, its context is destroyed. That’s why your recording stops.

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Strategies to Make Recording Persistent

1. Offload Recording to a Background Service Worker or Offscreen Document
   In Manifest V3, background scripts are now service workers. However, note that service workers are ephemeral. For operations that need to persist — like audio recording — you have a couple of options:

   • Offscreen Documents: These allow background work that stays running while handling recording tasks.
   • Persistent Windows: Open a dedicated extension page (in a new window or tab) that isn’t tied to the popup lifecycle. You can perform recording there and then send the results to your webhook.

2. Using chrome.tabCapture API in a Persistent Context
   As long as you're only capturing audio, you can use the chrome.tabCapture.capture API from a persistent context. For example, you might create a persistent window or use an offscreen document that starts the recording and manages the audio stream independently.

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Example: Moving Recording Logic to a Persistent Window

Instead of doing the recording in the popup, you can open a dedicated recorder page. In your popup or background script, you can open it like so:

JSCopied
chrome.windows.create({ 
  url: chrome.runtime.getURL("recorder.html"), 
  type: "popup", 
  width: 400, 
  height: 300 
});

Then, in your recorder.html (or its script), use the tab capture API to start recording:

JSCopied
chrome.tabCapture.capture({ audio: true }, (stream) => {
  if (chrome.runtime.lastError || !stream) {
    console.error("Error capturing tab audio:", chrome.runtime.lastError);
    return;
  }
  
  // Create an AudioContext to play back the captured audio if needed
  const audioContext = new AudioContext();
  const source = audioContext.createMediaStreamSource(stream);
  source.connect(audioContext.destination);
  
  // Here, you can also initialize a MediaRecorder to record or process the stream more
  const mediaRecorder = new MediaRecorder(stream);
  
  let chunks = [];
  
  mediaRecorder.ondataavailable = (event) => {
    if (event.data.size) {
      chunks.push(event.data);
    }
  };
  
  mediaRecorder.onstop = () => {
    const blob = new Blob(chunks, { type: 'audio/webm' });
    // Send your blob to the webhook via fetch or any other method
    fetch('https://your-n8n-webhook-url.com', {
      method: 'POST',
      body: blob,
    });
    chunks = []; // reset
  };
  
  // Start recording (adjust times as necessary)
  mediaRecorder.start();
  
  // Stop recording after designated time (or provide UI to stop)
  // For example, stop recording after 10 seconds:
  setTimeout(() => {
    mediaRecorder.stop();
  }, 10000);
});

This approach ensures that the recording process isn’t interrupted by popup dismissal or tab navigation, as your dedicated recorder page stays open.

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Alternative: Using an Offscreen Document

With offscreen documents, you can do similar logic. The offscreen document is created and managed by the extension and is not dependent on user navigation. See the Chrome offscreen documents guide for more details on setting this up.

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Summary

• Problem: Recording stops when the popup is closed because its context is destroyed.
• Solution: Move the recording logic to a persistent context such as a dedicated window/tab or an offscreen document.
• Implementation: Use chrome.windows.create to open a new recorder page or set up an offscreen document. Use chrome.tabCapture.capture from that persistent context to record the audio stream.

These changes should help keep your recording going until you explicitly stop it, even if the user navigates away from the popup. Happy coding!