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I upgraded my Dell Optiplex 9010 to Ubuntu 18.04 from Ubuntu 16.04. None of my GNOME web-browser-extensions (used for managing and installing extensions) work, neither the ones I have installed on Chromium, Chrome, or Firefox.

This has only been the case since my upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04.

This is what I see in every browser I open the URL on:

Although GNOME Shell integration extension is running, native host connector is not detected.

screenshot of error on extensions.gnome.org

How can I fix this?

wjandrea
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Robert Sederholm
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6 Answers6

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You need to install chrome-gnome-shell package so that your browser can detect your running GNOME Shell version. To install it run

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

Note: Installing GNOME Shell extensions doesn't work with the snap versions of the browser applications. Also since the 19.10 release, Ubuntu offers only the snap version of Chromium, the apt version of Chromium is not available in the standard repos. In Ubuntu 21.10, Ubuntu offers the snap version of Firefox by default, although you can uninstall it and install the APT version of Firefox.

Flimm
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pomsky
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    I find, from reading the terminal in the Ubuntu installer as fast as one can, that Ubuntu "cleans up" a lot of useful, user-installed files when upgrading. – Robert Sederholm May 10 '18 at 22:39
  • Yeah, done this and it's still saying the native host connector is not found. Any ideas what I should do from this point? – Ceisc May 28 '18 at 19:45
  • @Ceisc You can manually install extensions following this answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/1029180/480481 and manage them using GNOME Tweaks. – pomsky May 28 '18 at 20:24
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    OK, so it turns out the chrome-gnome-shell doesn't work if you install the version of Chromium that comes from the "Ubuntu Software" manager package, but does work if you install Chromium via apt. – Ceisc May 28 '18 at 21:28
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    @Ceisc Yes, it doesn't work with [the snap versions of the browser applications](https://askubuntu.com/q/1111784/480481). – pomsky Oct 30 '19 at 09:16
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    Works fine on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS. – Rudy Vissers Sep 24 '20 at 05:38
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I also followed all the instructions and tips and still couldn't get it to work with Chromium in Ubuntu 20.04 as Chromium is offered only as a snap package since Ubuntu 19.10.

But I did get it working with Brave browser, with the same Chrome extension. So one solution would be switch to Brave (it is also based Chromium, so not a big difference).

pomsky
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Mantas Lukosevicius
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    Do you mean for 20.04?? Or 19.10 or 18.04..... What version of Ubuntu were you using when this issue occured... same as in post (18.04)?? – Robert Sederholm Apr 25 '20 at 04:05
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    @RobertSederholm It's 20.04 – Mantas Lukosevicius Apr 25 '20 at 17:33
  • Also works on 19.10. – agold May 05 '20 at 06:24
  • How did you install the *apt version* of Chromium on 20.04? It's [not *actually* possible to install it on 20.04 (even on 19.10)](https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-transition). As [another answer](https://askubuntu.com/a/1235627/480481) pointed out, it just redirects you to install the snap version instead. Please correct your answer. – pomsky May 05 '20 at 18:32
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    Brave is only available via snap under 22.04 ... – CPBL Sep 22 '22 at 20:32
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Unfortunately it is no longer possible to install Chromium from apt on Ubuntu 20.04 because

chromium-browser - Transitional package - chromium-browser -> chromium snap

One solution is to use Chrome that seems to still have permissions for doing the job.

pomsky
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MilkThief
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  • Chrome is not the "only solution" though, you can use Firefox (apt version) or other Chromium based browsers that can be installed with apt. – pomsky May 05 '20 at 18:34
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Install the apt version of your browser install of the flatpack from Ubuntu Software. Example of installing apt version brave browser ( copied from Brave browser site sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl gnupg

curl -s https://brave-browser-apt-beta.s3.brave.com/brave-core-nightly.asc | sudo apt-key --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/brave-browser-prerelease.gpg add -

echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-beta.s3.brave.com/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-beta.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser-beta

Then install gnome shell extensions, then the browser Gnome Shell browser extension, and at that point you can install Gnome Shell Extensions.

majorgear
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A solution is to remove the snap package and install the apt package.

snap remove firefox
apt install firefox

It is a know bug since 2018, so for the moment, the apt is the only solution.

StR
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Instead of relying on the GNOME web-browser-extension and a browser at all, you can instead use the application "Extensions Manager" (not to be confused with "Extensions") that lets you search and install extensions. It can be installed via flathub, or e.g. with sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager.

Jan
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