Chrome Dev Tools: How to trace network for a link that opens a new tab?

Question

I want to trace the network activity that happens when I click on a link. The problem is that the link opens a new tab, and apparently the Dev Tools works per tab it was open for. "Preserve Log Upon Navigation" does not help.

My current solution is to move to FireFox and HttpFox which does not have this issue. I wonder how all the developers for Chrome manage, this sounds pretty basic (of course I've searched for the answer, didn't find anything helpful).

Since this question gets quite a lot of attention, I started to wonder if I can provide a better solution. Would making all links to open in the same tab do the trick? — Konrad Dzwinel
@KonradDzwinel This was a one-off task for me and I moved on so I can't tell you. If you care to try and write an answer I'll be glad to accept it. — davka
If you want this as a feature, feel free to Star this Chromium bug: code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=410958 — phsource
I miss Firefox because until today there was not a good way to use it except with external software. Auto popups is silly. — Kxrr

Konrad Dzwinel Konrad Dzwinel · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-02T17:33:52

Check out chrome://net-internals/#events (or chrome://net-export in the latest version of Chrome) for a detailed overview of all network events happening in your browser.

Other possible solution, depending on your specific problem, may be to enable 'Preserve log' on the 'Network' tab:

DevTools > Network > Preserve log

and force all links to open in the same tab by executing the following code in the console:

[].forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('a'),
    function(link){
        if(link.attributes.target) {
            link.attributes.target.value = '_self';
        }
    });

window.open = function(url) {
    location.href = url;
};

Chrome Dev Tools: How to trace network for a link that opens a new tab?

10 Answers