chrome bookmark widget not always capturing screen shots

[joelkamp]

Anyone else having issues with the scrollable chrome bookmark widget not capturing screen shots? Even after visiting a website the widget shows the default background image instead of a screen capture of the website some times. It seems to be very random as to when it works and does not. I have tried deleting the widget and all of the other standard trouble shooting stuff. Anyone figure out a way to get this to work or is this just a bug in chrome? For whatever reason this really bugs me from an aesthetic stand point.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Westfire]

I can't even get the widget to work. Might be because of Nova launcher. Good luck!

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[Joe the Insider]

I'm having same issue as well.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[ejraney]

I am having the same problem, plus bookmarks not showing up.

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[Ravynmagi]

I've had this problem for a while. With my Galaxy Nexus phone, the widget worked perfectly with the stock browser, the screen shots would update right away, but if I opened a bookmark with Chrome instead it seemed to never update the screen shot.

And that's seems to have continued with Chrome on my Nexus 7. I do see a couple of my bookmarks have screen shots, not sure if that was from Chrome or another browser. But none of my other bookmarks show any screenshot despite visiting those sites with Chrome. Kinda like having those screenshots.

 

[phaese]

Go to settings and request the desktop version, then try revisiting the bookmark.

I think Chrome tries to take a screenshot of the page you bookmarked (which is probably not the mobile version, i.e. techmeme.com) but instead you get redirected to the mobile version of that page (i.e. techmeme.com/m), and it never takes a screenshot (or can't match it to the bookmark).

 

[joeynumbers]

I wish the chrome team would fix this. I love chrome but this is subpar.

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[stu5797]

This also makes me so mad. Why cant they fix this? I also hate having the top left of the wiget showing what folder it is. Just show the bookmarks with the picture. My lord

 

[Argus_Dune]

Mine does not work either. The "request desktop site" does no good also. Just one more bug they need to kill.

 

[joelkamp]

After every chrome update I keep checking hoping they would fix this. I also keep sending in bug reports.... I suggest others do the same. Not sure why this is so hard to fix.

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[Kvoth]

I'm also having this problem... however, I've discovered that if I go to a page via the 'new tab' bookmarks shortcut in Chrome as opposed to going via the widget, the widget screenshot updates.

Worked 6/6 times for me.

 

[sandykoe]

That worked for me once, but not the other times I tried.

 

[EvoSickness]

Ok I found a solution to this very annoying prpblem. What you have to do ia go into the main google pages where your recent pages are once you go into that the book mark thumbnail should be saved as the correct one.

 

[genesis0x0]

Clearing the browsing history has solved this problem for me.

1) Open a new tab in your Chrome app and press the menu button on your Android device to access History.

2) Select 'Clear Browsing Data' at the bottom of your screen.

3) Only select 'Clear browsing history' and press Clear. You do not need to clear your cache, cookies, saved passwords, or autofill data.

4) Exit out of Chrome and also kill Chrome's application process. On most Android devices, you can do this by long pressing the home button to bring up a list of active apps or task manager.

5) All bookmark thumbnails on your widget should now be clear. If not, then enter and exit a bookmark folder on your widget. If you do not have folders, then open and close Chrome. Basically you need to refresh the screen. If your old thumbnails have not cleared, repeat step 4.

6) Now rebuild your bookmark thumbnails by visting each bookmark from INSIDE Chrome. Visiting bookmarks directly from the widget will NOT work. Open a new tab and press the menu button on your Android device to access Bookmarks. Visit a bookmark and allow the page to load completely. Press the menu Button again to access Bookmarks and repeat as needed.

About 22 to 24 thumbnails will be created assuming after you cleared the History, you only visited your bookmarked pages. After a certain thumbnail cache limit is reached within Chrome, it will stop generating thumbnails for your widget.

Through many tests I've come to determine that Chrome is creating thumbnails of pages in your History regardless of the page being a bookmark. So if you visit 20 non-bookmarked websites, and then 10 bookmarks, only the first few bookmarks' thumbnails will be created on the widget. However if you revisit one of the non-bookmarked website and bookmark it, then you will see it on the widget with a thumbnail.

I hope this works for other people and that my explanation was helpful.