Impact of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge 127 updates on ArcGIS Enterprise

Description

An update is coming to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge in July 2024 that will negatively impact and break key parts of the ArcGIS Enterprise portal experience for versions prior to ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3.

Esri will be releasing a series of patches, beginning in June 2024, to resolve this issue.  All ArcGIS Enterprise deployments whose users interact with the ArcGIS Enterprise portal and ArcGIS Enterprise-based web applications in ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2 or earlier, using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, must install these patches to avoid service interruptions.

This article will be updated as patches become available.

Cause

The Chromium open-source project that powers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge is removing an old, obsolete piece of web technology called mutation events.  In this Chromium 127 update, support for these events will be removed, causing global navigation bars on web pages dependent on this technology to appear blank (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1 - ArcGIS Enterprise global navigation bar as it should appear in Chrome and Edge browsers. If the patch is not installed, this will appear blank.

All versions of ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2 and earlier are affected. ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3 is unaffected. This impacts ArcGIS Enterprise deployments on Windows, Linux, and Kubernetes.  ArcGIS Online, esri.com, and other affected web properties that include the global navigation bar have already been updated and will be unaffected.  

This change is slated to go into effect with the release of Google Chrome 127 and Microsoft Edge 127. The impact of this will be seen this as soon as web browsers are updated.  Google Chrome will start being updated to Chrome 127 beginning July 23, 2024.  Users of Microsoft Edge will start being updated beginning July 25, 2024.

Rollout of new browser versions is often uneven and individual end users may be affected at different times, depending on when their browser version is updated.  End users will need to refer to their individual web browser to see what Google Chrome version or Microsoft Edge version they are using.

Anyone accessing ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Enterprise-based web apps through Google Chrome 127 or Microsoft Edge 127 will see different parts of the ArcGIS Enterprise portal and web apps work or draw incorrectly.

Most notably, the top navigation bar will fail to draw entirely and show a blank space instead (see Figure 2 below).

Figure 2- ArcGIS Enterprise global navigation bar, which will be missing in impacted versions with the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge 127 updates.

Solution or Workaround

To address changes in the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge 127 updates, Esri will be releasing patches for all affected versions of ArcGIS Enterprise that are within General Availability or Extended Support according to the ArcGIS Enterprise product lifecycle. Note that there will only be patches released for Windows and Linux and not Kubernetes, which has its own unique product lifecycle. 

This article will be updated as patches become available.

If ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2, 11.1, 10.9.1, or 10.8.1 is deployed, apply the relevant patch as soon as possible after it is released for their version of ArcGIS Enterprise.

If unable to upgrade to a patchable version of ArcGIS Enterprise or unable to apply the patch prior to the release of Google Chrome 127 and Microsoft Edge 127, an enterprise policy setting is available in Chrome and Edge to delay the implementation of this breaking change to a later version of Chrome and Edge.

Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge both support the concept of enterprise policy settings that affect the behavior of those browsers. Both browsers are introducing a new policy setting called MutationEventsEnabled that can be used to delay the effective date of this change.  When enabling this setting, the change will not go into effect until Google Chrome 135 and Microsoft Edge 135.  This will provide about nine additional months to either install the necessary patch or upgrade to a new version of ArcGIS Enterprise.