Error in response to storage.get: TypeError: Cannot read property 'addListener' of undefined

Question

I am creating a Google Chrome extension that captures screenshots of websites, and I need my popup.js to be able to send a message to my background.js. I keep getting this error: Error in response to storage.get: TypeError: Cannot read property 'addListener' of undefined.

Here is my current code for background.js:

chrome.storage.sync.get({
    extensionBehavior: 'onClick',
    logIn: false
}, function(items) {
    if(items.extensionBehavior == 'onClick'){
        // When the extension icon is clicked, send a message to the content script
        chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
            if (!request.message){
                var img;
                chrome.tabs.captureVisibleTab(null, {}, function(dataURL){
                    img = dataURL;
                    chrome.tabs.query({active: true, currentWindow: true}, function(tabs) {
                        chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tabs[0].id, {"message": tabs[0].url, "statusCode": 0, "image": img, "note" : request.note}, function(response){});
                    });
                });
            }
        });
    }
    else {
        /* ... */
    }
});

My popup.js is sending the message properly, but my background script keeps giving me the same error. Is the chrome.runtime API not available inside of chrome.storage.sync.get? Before I added that method, the chrome.tabs API was working fine, and the popup is definitely sending the message (I tested it).

Answer 1

The problem was that I was sending tabs.sendMessage instead of runtime.sendMessage with my popup.js. The tabs API sends messages to the content scripts, while the runtime API can send messages anywhere.