Chrome extension: Activate and execute background.js on click from popup.js

Question

As I understand from Manage Events with Background Scripts and Migrate to Event Driven Background Scripts background script should be activated when events triggered.

background.js

chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener((message, sender, reply) => {

    const json = message.data;
    // some code

    reply({ result: true })
    return true;    
});

popup.js

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({ data: [<ArrayWithData>] },
    function (response) {
        logger.log(response);
    }
);

Everything works well, but only in case of active background.

Why background not become active? Can someone explain what is my mistake? Or how can I activate and execute background.js on click from popup.js ?

I know that if I change persistence: true in manifest.json or just remove it, everything will works fine. But I want to keep persistence false and trigger background.js when needed.

Answer 1

You missed this part in the documentation that explains how a background script should be activated from popup.js . After retrieving the background page object, you just need to call any function or even access a field.

I always put this at the top of my popup.js :

// Initialize background page
chrome.runtime.getBackgroundPage(function(backgroundPage) {
  console = backgroundPage.console;
})

That way I can also view console logs from the popup together with logs from the background view