Troubleshooting

The outline does not appear

• Open the Crumbs popup and confirm the outline is set to Show. Pin/unpin does not turn the outline on or off.
• Check whether the current site is excluded by your site rules.
• Refresh tabs that were already open when Crumbs was installed or updated.
• Chrome blocks extensions on some protected browser pages, including the Chrome Web Store and chrome:// pages.
• When Crumbs finds no headings, a small Crumbs logo appears in place of the collapsed rail. Open it to see No headings found. If you expected headings on the page, use the report link in the panel to contact us.

A heading is missing

Check the heading-level filter and increase its depth. If the heading is inside a collapsed group, expand its parent; searching can temporarily reveal matching descendants. Only H1 indicates that only top-level headings are available.

Crumbs intentionally excludes hidden headings and page controls such as navigation, footers, sidebars, promotional sections, and duplicate tables of contents. It keeps article titles and substantive content headings when it can distinguish them from page controls. Dynamically loaded headings may take a moment to appear.

Web apps like Gmail and Google Drive may show few or no headings in Crumbs. Their screens are often built around controls, lists, and panels, so they may have fewer content headings than an article or documentation page. An empty outline can be expected in these views.

We try to make Crumbs work well across a wide range of websites, but some layouts can cause useful headings to be filtered out by mistake. If this happens on a public page, contact us with the page link and a brief description of the missing section so we can improve support. Please leave out private details and do not share private or access-restricted pages.

Jump to Top or Jump to Bottom does not work

If a button is missing, check that it’s enabled under General → Controls → Quick buttons in the Crumbs popup.

Jump buttons can work on pages without headings because Crumbs looks for the part of the page that scrolls. Some layouts, especially web apps with several scrolling panels, can make it hard to identify the right one. The button may scroll a different panel or have no visible effect.

If jumping doesn’t work as expected, report the problem. Include a public page link if available, which button you used, which part of the page you expected to scroll, and what happened. Leave out private details.

Older ChatGPT messages are missing

ChatGPT loads long conversations in portions. Crumbs cannot list messages that ChatGPT has not loaded yet. Use Jump to Top, or Go to top in the outline’s older-messages notice, then wait for ChatGPT to load earlier content. Repeat if more history is still missing. It may take several attempts; one jump does not guarantee that the entire conversation is loaded.

An outline entry can also remain listed after ChatGPT removes its content from the visible page. If a tooltip says Not loaded, selecting it jumps toward the nearest loaded entry. Let ChatGPT load that area, then select the entry again if needed. See ChatGPT Conversations.

The ChatGPT outline is empty or looks different

Confirm AI Chat → ChatGPT → Conversation outline is enabled, the popup is set to Show, and your site rules allow chatgpt.com. Check the Question, Answer, and Heading in Answers filters directly in the outline, and clear any search query. An answer without headings has no answer-heading rows.

The ChatGPT outline follows the current conversation and selected answer branch. Editing a question or switching an answer can change its entries. Wait for streaming or loading to settle; refresh if the outline still appears out of sync after an extension update. Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity conversation outlines are not supported yet.

ChatGPT question times are missing or approximate

Check AI Chat → ChatGPT → Show question times. When ChatGPT does not provide a time, Crumbs can remember approximate times for new questions sent on this device if Remember approximate times is enabled. It does not reconstruct missing times for older history. Clear times removes locally saved times.

A shortcut does not work

The current search default is Option/Alt + Shift + V, including when the outline is collapsed. Pin/unpin defaults to Option/Alt + Shift + C. Check General → Controls → Keyboard shortcuts for disabled or customized bindings, and use Reset if needed.

In-page shortcuts do not run while you are typing in an input or editor. Browser or operating-system shortcuts may take priority. Chrome manages the separate Settings shortcut: use Set in Chrome shortcuts to inspect Activate the extension. The suggested Option/Alt + Shift + X may be unassigned if it conflicts.

Hover preview does not work

In General → Controls → Keyboard shortcuts, confirm Hover preview is enabled and check its selected key. Hold only that modifier, pause over a heading in the expanded outline, and avoid additional keys. The default is Shift; preview does not run while typing. Caps Lock is not supported.

Preview scrolls without changing the URL or showing a heading highlight, so the absence of those effects is expected. Release the modifier to stop previewing.

Copy section link is missing or does not jump correctly

Crumbs hides the control for local files, some pages that use URL fragments for routing, or headings it cannot identify reliably. Repeated text may need enough surrounding context to create an unambiguous link.

Copied links use the page’s own anchor where possible, or a text fragment. Their behavior depends on the destination page and browser. A page edit, access restriction, or browser without text-fragment support can prevent the expected jump. Markdown links target the original source document.

A site or Markdown rule does not match

New rules use shared domains and wildcard patterns. example.com/* does not include subdomains; use *.example.com/* for those. localhost/* matches any port, while localhost:5173/* limits it to one port. Paths are case-sensitive, and new rules ignore query strings and fragments.

A bare path such as /blog/ needs a domain or wildcards, such as */blog/*. Invalid batches are not partially added, so fix the reported entry before submitting again. Open Pattern examples in the popup or see the pattern guide.

Older Markdown rules keep their original matching behavior and labels until removed. Check which type you are editing before comparing it with a new rule.

Local Markdown is not rendered

Two controls must be enabled:

1. Local Markdown files in the Crumbs popup’s Readers tab.
2. Allow access to file URLs on Chrome’s extension Details page.

One more step required means Chrome’s permission is still off. Select Open extension settings, grant file access, and refresh the Markdown file. A green permission dot indicates that browser file access is granted.

Crumbs only renders eligible Markdown files. It does not edit files or watch the disk, so refresh after changing the file.

Markdown stays in Raw view

Use the Rendered/Raw control to select Rendered. That removes the locally saved Raw preference for the document. Automatic-rendering URL rules can affect the initial view of detected web Markdown. Show/Hide controls the floating outline separately from the document’s reading view.

Markdown and the outline have different themes

This is expected: the document has its own Light/Dark/System preference. Change it from the document’s palette icon or Readers → Reader appearance in the popup. Glazed/Plain and Plain’s theme control the floating outline separately. Mermaid diagrams retain a light canvas in either document theme.

A Markdown image does not load

Images are requested from the location referenced by the document. The host may require authentication, block loading, or no longer contain the resource. Local images also require Chrome’s file-access permission. Relative images resolve against the original document URL.

HTML appears as code with an information icon ⓘ

Hover over or focus the icon for an explanation. The markup may be restricted, such as a script or form, or simply outside Crumbs’ supported HTML subset. The icon alone does not mean the document is harmful. Raw view preserves the original source.

JSON stays in Raw view

Select Rendered from the document control. Invalid JSON, responses larger than the rendering limits, or documents nested beyond 128 levels remain in Raw with an explanation. Crumbs does not repair trailing commas, comments, incomplete responses, or other invalid syntax.

Crumbs recognizes standalone JSON responses, not JSON examples embedded in HTML, already-rendered repository pages, downloads, streaming NDJSON, or custom JSON viewers. See Reading JSON for the supported content types and limits.

A JSON field is missing from the tree or outline

Large objects and arrays load progressively. Select Show more, expand the parent branch, or use the Crumbs search to find the key, value, or JSON Pointer path. Search includes accepted fields that are not currently mounted or visible in the outline.

Browser Find only searches mounted lines in Rendered view. Switch to Raw or use Crumbs search for the complete response.

Local JSON does not render

Enable Readers → JSON reader → Local JSON files and Chrome’s Allow access to file URLs permission, then refresh the .json file. Markdown and JSON have separate local-file switches.

Still need help?

Email karl.ext.dev@gmail.com or contact us through GitHub. Opening a GitHub issue requires a GitHub account; email is available too. Include your Crumbs extension version, Chrome version, the page type, what you expected, and what happened so we can understand the problem.

Find the extension version in the settings popup: select the info icon at the top right to open About Crumbs. Share only public example links and leave out private details.

Looking for a new capability? Send a feature request through GitHub or email. Tell us what you’d like to do and how it would help your reading workflow.