claude-in-chrome: navigate returns "Permission denied by user" on previously-working domains, extension otherwise paired

Summary

mcp__claude-in-chrome__navigate fails with Permission denied by user when navigating to external domains that had worked in the same browser/extension setup on prior days. This is distinct from #82879 (failed pairing / empty list_connected_browsers) — in this case the extension was paired, tabs_context_mcp returned a valid existing tab, and the failure happens specifically on navigate to certain domains.

Steps to reproduce

1. Confirm extension is paired: tabs_context_mcp returns an existing tab successfully.
2. Call navigate with a tabId from that context to an external domain (in my case: therecord.media, cybercanon.org, wired.com — three different domains, same session).
3. First attempt on one domain returned: The "navigate" tool did not respond in time. The Chrome extension is connected but the page may be loading, unresponsive, or waiting on a permission prompt in the extension side panel.
4. Retrying the same navigate call (same domain) returned: Permission denied by user.
5. Retried across three different domains in the same session — all three failed with the same Permission denied by user message after the first attempt's "waiting on a permission prompt" hint.

Expected behavior

Either the navigation succeeds (if the domain has already been granted host permission in a prior session), or a permission prompt is surfaced somewhere I can actually respond to it. Instead the tool call itself reports a hard denial with no way to review or approve the underlying prompt from the Claude Code session.

Actual behavior

navigate returns Permission denied by user on every retry, for every domain tried, with the extension otherwise reporting as connected and paired. No interactive prompt was visible or actionable from my side during the session.

Environment

• Occurred 2026-08-03, in a Claude Code session using claude-in-chrome MCP tools.
• tabs_context_mcp worked and returned a valid tab/tabGroupId throughout.
• Same session had previously used the extension successfully against other domains earlier in the conversation (a local localhost dev server, and — in an earlier session — sevenrooms.com, tableagent.com), so this isn't a total extension failure, just navigation-to-specific-external-domains.

Related

Distinct from #82879 (extension fails to pair at all / list_connected_browsers empty). This issue is about a paired extension refusing to navigate to specific external domains.