Gmail contextual gadget broken

Question

In the last few days there appeared to be a problem with the Gmail contextual gadget, that uses the messageID extractor.This gadget has been functional in our production Gmail environment for a few years, but now it seems to be broken, probably due to some unexpected change on the Google side. I tested it in two distinct domains and it is not working properly.

What happens:

• The window of the contextual gadget does not appear in the main Gmail interface

• But when the message is opened in a separate window (by pressing
  Shift and click on the message) the gadget loads well – this process can be used as a workaround, but it is not optimal

• Sometimes (rarely) the gadget mysteriously appears even in the mail
  Gmail interface, but after some time it stops working again

Is there anyone with similar experience? Any info of some changes or technical issues on the Google side?

Chrome JS console does not show any error.

Behaviour in the main interface - NOOK

Behaviour in the separate window – OK

Manifest of the registered gadget looks like this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<ApplicationManifest xmlns="http://schemas.google.com/ApplicationManifest/2009">

  <!-- Support info to show in the marketplace & control panel -->
  <Support>
    <!-- URL for application setup as an optional redirect during the install -->
    <!--    <Link rel="setup" href="http://cgitest.cz/google/setup.php?domain=${DOMAIN_NAME}" /> -->

    <!-- URL for application configuration, accessed from the app settings
     page in the control panel -->
         <!--<Link rel="manage" href="http://cgitest.cz/google/admin.php?domain=${DOMAIN_NAME}" /> -->

    <!-- URL explaining how customers get support. -->
    <Link rel="support" href="http://cgitest.cz/google/support.php" />

    <!-- URL that is displayed to admins during the deletion process,
     to specify policies such as data retention, how to claim accounts, etc. -->
    <Link rel="deletion-policy" href="http://cgitest.cz/google/deletion-policy.php" />
  </Support>

  <!-- Name and description pulled from message bundles -->
  <Name>GSCS message ID Extractor</Name>
  <Description>A simple Hello World application for testing
  Gmail contextual gadgets</Description>

  <!-- Show this link in Google's universal navigation for all users -->
  <Extension id="navLink" type="link">
    <Name>GSCS message ID Extractor</Name>
    <Url>http://cgitest.cz/home.php?from=google&amp;domain=${DOMAIN_NAME}</Url>
  </Extension>

  <!-- Declare our OpenID realm so our app is white listed -->
  <Extension id="realm" type="openIdRealm">
    <Url>http://cgitest.cz</Url>
  </Extension>

<!-- EXTRACTOR -->

<!--<Extension id="HelloWorldExtractor" type="contextExtractor">
  <Name>Hello World</Name>
  <Url>google.com:HelloWorld</Url>  -->
  <!-- Uncomment this Param to apply a filter to the extractor's
  default output. The example regexp below makes the match case sensitive. -->
      <!-- <Param name="hello" value="H[a-z]* W[a-z]*"/> -->
<!--  <Triggers ref="GSCSContextGadget"/>
  <Scope ref="emailSubject"/>
  <Scope ref="emailBody"/>
  <Container name="mail"/>  
</Extension>  -->

<Extension id="MessageIDExtractor" type="contextExtractor">
  <Name>Message ID extractor</Name>
  <Url>google.com:MessageIDExtractor</Url>
  <!-- Uncomment this Param to apply a filter to the extractor's
  default output. The example regexp below makes the match case sensitive. -->
      <!-- <Param name="hello" value="H[a-z]* W[a-z]*"/> -->
  <Triggers ref="GSCSContextGadget"/>
  <Scope ref="messageID"/>
  <Container name="mail"/>
</Extension>

<!-- GADGET -->

<Extension id="GSCSContextGadget" type="gadget">
  <Name>Gmail contextual gadget</Name>
  <Url>http://gscs.cgitest.cz/gadget/gscs-contextgadget.xml</Url>
  <Container name="mail"/>
  <!-- Uncomment this to enable Caja. -->
  <!-- <Param name="caja" value="enabled"/> -->
</Extension>

<!-- SCOPE -->

<!-- <Scope id="emailSubject">
  <Url>tag:google.com,2010:auth/contextual/extractor/SUBJECT</Url>
  <Reason>This application searches the Subject: line of each email
  for the text "Hello World."</Reason>
</Scope>

<Scope id="emailBody">  
  <Url>tag:google.com,2010:auth/contextual/extractor/BODY</Url>
  <Reason>This application searches the message body of each email
  for the text "Hello World."</Reason>
</Scope> -->

<Scope id="messageID">
  <Url>tag:google.com,2010:auth/contextual/extractor/MESSAGE_ID</Url>
  <Reason>Matches the Gmail frontend message id of the message (this is a 64-bit hexadecimal value, different from the RFC 822 Message-ID)
      </Reason>
</Scope>

</ApplicationManifest>

Answer 1

I got an answer from Google today on a proposed fix for Friday. Here is what they have said.

---

Thanks for your patience.

Please read below for updates on the status of your issue:

Updates since last message:

We have already identified the potential culprit and the fix for it is planned to go live this Friday.

We'll provide another update after the resolution of this issue has been fully confirmed.

If you have any questions about your case, you can reply to this message and a support agent will follow up with you. If you no longer think this is your issue, please click the link below so that we can continue working with you to identify your issue:

---

Just to confirm - this is fixed for our domain today (Sat morning... wasn't fixed Friday but is indeed working today). I had to escalate the issue with Google Support - not sure if that changed anything but for now we have gadgets again.