Claude in Chrome: all sites blocked by site permissions, persists across full reinstall

Description

Every navigate call from Claude Code's claude-in-chrome browser tool fails with:

This site is blocked by your site permissions.

This happens for any domain, including a neutral test site (example.com), not just the originally targeted site (novosafe.myshopify.com).

Environment

• macOS (Darwin 23.3.0)
• Chrome, Claude in Chrome extension
• Claude Code CLI

Steps to reproduce

1. Open a Claude Code session with claude-in-chrome tools loaded.
2. Call tabs_context_mcp (creates a new tab group successfully — tab creation/management works).
3. Call navigate to any URL.
4. Result: This site is blocked by your site permissions. — no permission prompt/popup ever appears in the browser for the user to approve the site.

What we ruled out

Extensive troubleshooting session with the user, in this order:

• Chrome's own per-site permissions (popups, device use, etc.) — unrelated, this is a separate system from the extension's own site allowlist.
• Claude in Chrome extension's Chrome-level host permission — confirmed set to "En todos los sitios" (on all sites).
• Claude in Chrome's own "Tus sitios aprobados" list (in extension Options) — empty, and no way to manually add a site there; it's meant to populate via an in-browser approval prompt that never appeared, on any site.
• Ad blocker interference — disabled ad blocker, same result.
• Chrome being enterprise-managed — checked chrome://management (not managed) and chrome://policy (no policies set at all).
• Duplicate/conflicting extension installs — found two Claude extension instances installed simultaneously at one point; removed both, reinstalled clean single instance — same result.
• Stale account/extension pairing — disconnected the Chrome connector from claude.ai account settings, reconnected — same result.
• Full Chrome restart, full extension reinstall (multiple times) — same result every time.
• Checked local Claude Code ~/.claude/settings.local.json permissions — no Bash/tool restriction related to browser or the target domain; unrelated system.
• Extension connection itself is flaky: tabs_context_mcp intermittently returns "Browser extension is not connected" and then reconnects moments later without user action.

Given this survives a full clean reinstall (extension + account connector), it looks like the "blocked" state may be tracked server-side against the account rather than reset by a local reinstall, or there's a bug in how the in-browser approval prompt is triggered/displayed (it never appears at all, for any domain).

Impact

Browser automation via claude-in-chrome tools is completely unusable in this session/account — cannot approve any site since the approval UI never surfaces.