[🐛 Bug]: Chrome 140 + Selenium BiDi: Extension is loaded but authentication popup opens but content renders incorrectly until manual refresh

[kashishsinghyadav]

Description

With Chrome 140+, --load-extension is no longer supported.
We migrated to Selenium BiDi WebExtension APIs to install a Chrome extension.

The extension installs successfully and the inline menu opens.
However, during extension authentication:

• Clicking "Unlock / Authenticate" opens a new extension window (expected)
• The authentication code SHOULD be visible immediately
• Instead, the window shows a red error state
• After manually refreshing the window, the auth code appears
• This breaks automation logic because the content is not available on first load

This issue only occurs when the extension is installed via BiDi.
The same flow worked correctly earlier using --load-extension.

OS: Windows
Java: 17
Selenium: 4.40.0
Chrome: 140+
ChromeDriver: Matching Chrome version
WebDriverManager: 6.3.3

Reproducible Code

case "chrome":
String chromeExtensionPath = extensionPath + "\\Chrome";
System.out.println("Loading Chrome extension from: " + chromeExtensionPath); // Debug
ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
chromeOptions.addArguments("--disable-features=IsolateOrigins,site-per-process");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--disable-site-isolation-trials");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--disable-web-security");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--user-data-dir=C:/Temp/ChromeProfile");

chromeOptions.setCapability("webSocketUrl", true);
chromeOptions.addArguments("--enable-unsafe-extension-debugging");
chromeOptions.addArguments("start-maximized");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--remote-debugging-pipe") ; 
chromeOptions.addArguments("--disable-features=DisableLoadExtensionCommandLineSwitch");
					
chromeOptions.setExperimentalOption("enableExtensionTargets", true);			     		            
WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
browserDriver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions); 
WebExtension extension = new WebExtension(browserDriver);
 Map<String, Object> extensionResult = null;
 System.out.println("Installing extension from: " + extensionPath);
extensionResult = extension.install(
 new InstallExtensionParameters(new ExtensionPath(chromeExtensionPath)	      );
break;

---

ℹ️ Last known working version: 4.40.0

[selenium-ci]

@kashishsinghyadav, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

Selenium Triage Team: remember to follow the Triage Guide