Accessing console and devtools of extension's background.js

Question

I just started out with Google Chrome extensions and I can't seem to log to console from my background js. When an error occurs (because of a syntax error, for example), I can't find any error messages either.

My manifest file:

{
  "name": "My First Extension",
  "version": "1.0",
  "manifest_version": 2,
  "description": "The first extension that I made.",
  "browser_action": {
    "default_icon": "icon.png"
  },
  "background": {
    "scripts": ["background.js"]
  },
  "permissions": [
    "pageCapture",
    "tabs"
  ]
}

background.js:

alert("here");
console.log("Hello, world!")

When I load the extension, the alert comes up but I don't see anything being logged to console. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You're looking at the wrong place. Logged console messages do not appear in the web page, but in the (invisible) background page. To see these messages in the console, follow these steps:

Visit chrome://extensions/.
You can also right-click the extension icon, then click "Manage extensions".

1. Enable developer mode
2. Click on the link of your background page (at "Inspect views").
3. The developer console opens for this page.

New UI:

Old UI: