Chrome plugin bridge times out despite healthy extension and native host

What happened?

The Chrome plugin bridge times out when attempting the initial lightweight call browser.user.openTabs() from Codex.

Reproduction / recovery steps tried

1. Attempted to connect to the Chrome plugin bridge with browser.user.openTabs().
2. The call timed out.
3. Retried once after a short wait.
4. The retry also timed out.
5. Ran the Chrome plugin health checks:

• Chrome running: passed
• Installed browsers: Google Chrome found
• Codex Chrome Extension installed/enabled: passed
• Native host manifest: passed and allowed origin matched the extension ID

1. Inspected /tmp/codex-browser-use.

• Preserved the live extension-owned socket: /tmp/codex-browser-use/81542f3e-e446-4550-96ee-37f9bcb59ebc.sock
• Found no stale unheld socket files safe to remove
• Left active Codex-owned sockets untouched

1. Opened a fresh Chrome window for the selected profile and retried the bridge once.
2. The bridge still timed out after 60 seconds.

Expected behavior

The bridge should connect and allow lightweight calls like browser.user.openTabs() so Codex can use the Chrome plugin.

Actual behavior

The bridge hangs until timeout even though Chrome, the extension, and the native host manifest all appear healthy.

Environment

• OS: macOS
• Chrome: 147.0.7727.139
• Chrome profile: Default
• Codex Chrome Extension: installed and enabled
• Native host manifest: present and correct
• Extension version observed in profile: 1.1.4_0

Notes

The same task could be completed using the Computer Use plugin to operate Chrome directly, so Chrome itself was responsive. The failure appears isolated to the Chrome plugin bridge connection.