Chrome OS Diagnostic app adds input devices, connectivity, and nav panel

When Chrome OS 90 arrived back in April, Google rolled out a handy little SWA dubbed the Diagnostic App. In its current state, the Diagnostic App gives users a snapshot of current CPU and memory usage along with battery health and current charge. There are a handful of tests that users can run from the app to assist in diagnosing issues related to performance that can be saved as a session log to be passed on to OEMs or developers. This is a helpful tool especially for IT admins that manage fleets of devices but the Diagnostic App is about the get significantly more useful thanks to some new features headed our way.

Also in April, we reported that the newly discovered Connectivity app would soon be integrated into the Chrome OS Diagnostic tool but now, it appears that even more tools could soon grace the troubleshooting SWA. (System Web App) For starters, the Diagnostic App will be gaining a navigation panel and that’s a very good thing. In the Canary channel, the app has become very cluttered with network and connectivity information that is being pulled from wi-fi and LTE networks. The new navigation layout will remedy this with something that I presume will look more like the Chrome OS Settings menu.

Diagnostics: Add navigation-panel to Diagnostics app

– The navigation page is shown when the #diagnostics-app-navigation flag is enabled

– Moves connectivity to separate nav page

– Moves card styles to shared css file

– Adds test util to get an element from a navigation-view-panel element

In addition to easier navigation, the developers are adding an “input device” card to the Diagnostic App. If I’m deciphering this correctly, this will output a list of connected devices such as keyboards, mice, cameras, etc. There is also reference to listing information about the current state of a connected device. This could be things like volume levels, current input/output device, and whether or not a device is muted. All very helpful information if you are trying to diagnose hardware issues. The flag for this addition has already popped up in the Canary channel but at this point, doesn’t appear to be functioning.

diagnostics: Add boot performance fetcher

Add boot performance fetcher to collect info. In this CL, we collect boot up related metrics.

Chromium Repository

Last but not least, the Diagnostic App will add a “boot performance” card. This card will contain information such as total boot time and timestamps for power on and power off cycles. It is plausible that it could provide more in-depth information like which apps launch at startup, time in sleep state, and other boot-related data. The flag for this feature has yet to arrive in the Canary channel but I am anxious to see what other data may be presented in the boot section so we’ll keep a close watch on it to see when it goes live. Stay tuned. Chrome OS 93 should hit the Canary channel very soon and I expect we will some even more exciting updates.