Source
r/chrome•
meatmobile

[help] Chrome no longer displaying new message badge on pinned tabs

After a restart (and a possible chrome update) Chrome no longer displays the blue dot from an updated pinned tab - this is making me miss a lot of messages in my group chat tabs. How do I re-enable these? There's no setting for turning them back on that I can find.

Was it completely removed from Chrome? I can't find any setting at all to turn them back on and no one else on the internet seems to have this problem.

Posted Aug 5, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC · edited

516
Norsedakotan•

I'm disappointed at this change also. I run 2 Chrome profiles at the same time, work and personal and the blue dot is invaluable to me. Please consider making this something that can be enabled by the user if they want it. I can't believe that many people hated it that it was removed. I'll downgrade for now with hopes of it making a comeback.

2
meatmobileOP•

Yeah. I personally find enough people 'hating it' very hard to believe. Google hardly removes disliked features.

I mean, if people didn't like it, why alienate the people who do like it instead of making it an option?

2
pkasting•

After endless complaints from folks on the internet, we removed blue dot badging on page title changes. Web sites have other options for notifying people of changes, e.g. changing the favicon or using notifications.

1
wurkaccount•

If I complain endlessly will you bring it back?

4
pkasting•

Unlikely!

2
ddbrown30•

You guys must have known there would be backlash for removing it too. Why wouldn't you just make it an option? It's what most of the forum complainers were requesting anyway.

2
pkasting•

In general options have downsides: http://neugierig.org/software/blog/2018/07/options.html

2
mhowie•

Missing the blue dot as well to alert a new email(s) is awaiting behind the pinned tab. Firefox still registers the blue tab but ideally I'd like to use Chrome for my Gmail activities for obvious reasons...please restore or provide the option to do so.

1
meatmobileOP•

Is there any way for me to get it back? It was the only way for me to keep track of these sites (they do not have favicon change settings) and the only extension I could find interferes with Discord's built in favicons and disables Discord's sounds.

And that's strange, why did it only get removed for me? Two of my friends that did tests on the latest versions for me still have the blue dot badging. How do I turn it back on?

2
pkasting•

"Latest versions" doesn't mean much; post actual version numbers.

The code is gone, there's no setting to control it.

1
qwinsta•

Sad, this is just sad. This was a wery useful functionality imho. Blue dot is distracting but sounds and big ass notifications are not? Everybody overdosed on coffee nowadays, have ADD or what?

Besides, hangouts in gmail for ex. does not notify of messages in any way.. Typical Google, sigh Really hope somebody creates userscript or extension or smth to FIX THIS. Created an account just to say this, venting over.

3
pkasting•

They provide signal that can be useful, or it can be annoying, and they don't know about the context of the page. Web authors, OTOH, know more about what they're trying to do, and can trivially build systems that add a dot to the favicon, or more specific info (e.g. gmail favicon unread counts), or notify you in a variety of other ways. So they're in a better position to make this decision than the browser is.

There is no perfect answer. We're trying to make a decision that allows web authors to give users more choices instead of forcing something on people, but your complaint is legitimate.

1
Anonibroo•

I've very disappointed that functionality is gone. I pin lots of tabs and that blue dot being triggered on page title changes was very helpful. There are sites I use that I don't want sending me tons of Chrome notifications. The blue dot helped tell me this page had some activity without constantly sending Chrome notifications in front of my active tab/page.

I would REALLY like for this return as a flag to be enabled or something.

2
meatmobileOP•

The latest version is 68.0.3440.84 win10. I am using the latest version. 'Latest version' means latest version.

There is a setting to control it. Where is it? If there was no setting to control it, why does it switch itself on and off at random for different people with no ability for the user to control it? Why does everyone else I ask on the same version not have the same problem as me? If the code was removed, why do other peopple on the same version hve the ability to get new message badges on their pinned tabs?

Since when has Google actually removed something people complained about, anyways?

Answer my questions and help intead of making stuff up and trolling. It seems like you're just having a laugh instead of actually trying to help.

1
pkasting•

(Edited to correspond better to your post, which was edited right around the time I posted the original of this)

The latest released version of Chrome as I write this is 70.0.3514.1, which is Canary. You are using the latest Windows stable version. However, double-check the actual version numbers from your friends. Chrome 68 was only just released to the stable channel, is not yet on CrOS, and has not rolled out to all users, so it's very possible that they don't have the same version you do. It's also possible they're testing cases with dialogs appearing, which _do_ still show a dot; what we removed is triggering the dot on page title changes.

I believe all available versions of Chrome 68 should omit this dot on pinned tabs with title updates. The change to remove was https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1052855 , which landed at position 557334. Chrome 68 branched at 561733. You not getting the badge makes sense. I can't vouch for your friends.

There is not a setting to control this; I reviewed the change that removed this code. I am one of the Chromium tabstrip owners. I'm sorry if I'm not being helpful enough, but the code really doesn't exist, so it doesn't have a setting and it doesn't switch itself on and off at random. There is some other explanation for what you describe. It's possible I'm not even describing the same UI you are. Screenshots would have helped.

1
RoyBoy432•

I really wish the blue dots had not been removed...

There are some extensions that attempt to restore the blue dot functionality. I'm trying out the following ones

Blue Dot Replacement https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blue-dot-replacement/opjidajjikdcpbpbbcmadmignnimecco/

Notifycon https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/notifycon/jaoianckkhlbbeodjpaajaimlpidbckh

1
meatmobileOP•

I found Blue Dot Replacement works really well with tabs that only change their name. Notifycon just screwed with Discord somehow..

2