Chrome MCP bridge: all tab actions fail with "tab no longer exists" on Windows

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Pro (10.0.26200)
• Claude app: Claude Desktop App
• Claude in Chrome extension: v1.0.66
• Browser: Google Chrome (latest)

Issue

tabs_context_mcp works correctly — creates tab groups and returns tab IDs. However, all subsequent tool calls on those tabs (navigate, get_page_text, screenshot, computer) immediately fail with:

Tab [id] no longer exists. Call tabs_context_mcp to get current tabs.

The tab is visibly still open in Chrome. navigate sometimes succeeds on the first call, but any follow-up call on the same tab ID fails. No permission prompts appear. No errors in the extension error log.

Steps to reproduce

1. Call tabs_context_mcp with createIfEmpty: true — succeeds, returns tab ID and group ID
2. Call navigate with returned tab ID — sometimes succeeds
3. Call any other tool (screenshot, get_page_text, computer, read_page) on same tab ID — fails with "tab no longer exists"
4. Call tabs_context_mcp again — succeeds, often returns the same tab (still alive)
5. Call any action tool again — fails again

Troubleshooting attempted

• Verified native messaging host config exists at %APPDATA%\Claude\ChromeNativeHost\com.anthropic.claude_browser_extension.json
• Verified registry key HKCU\Software\Google\Chrome\NativeMessagingHosts\com.anthropic.claude_browser_extension points correctly
• chrome-native-host.exe exists and runs
• Killed and restarted chrome-native-host.exe
• Extension has "On all sites" access and "Allow access to file URLs" enabled
• Updated both extension and desktop app
• Deleted all tab groups and retried
• Tested with multiple URLs (google.com, keepa.com, shopogolic.net)
• Restarted Chrome completely
• Issue is consistent and 100% reproducible