Is there any way to keep Developer Tools open when debugging a Chrome Extension?

Question

I'm trying to debug a Chrome Extension but every time I refresh it, the developer tools window that is associated with the extension closes. Does anyone know if there is a way to keep it open?

Here's what I'm doing: I click the extension button, which opens a popup window. I then right click it and click "Inspect". That opens the Developer Tools. Now if I click the extension button again to refresh it (when I update code), the Developer Tools closes. :(

Answer 1

There are two ways to accomplish this.

• Click on the Dev Tools popup so the window is focused and then press F5. This will reload the popup and Dev Tools, and will not cause the Dev Tools window to close.
• If that doesn't work for you, go to chrome-extension://extensionid/path/to/popup.html on a separate tab on Chrome. From there, you can inspect element, and refreshing the file will not cause Dev Tools to close.