What is a Chrome Network Dump (HAR) and where do I find it?

Sometimes, when you are troubleshooting with a support engineer, he/she may ask you to provide a Chrome Network Dump or HAR dump. This is an HTTP archive that records all the network requests made. This HAR dump can help the support engineer get a detailed view of your activity and resolve the problem you are facing.

Getting the HAR dump

1. Go to the hamburger menu and navigate to More Tools > Developer Tools*

If you are using a Windows/ Linux machine, you can press ‘Ctrl+Shift+I’ or ‘F12’.

If you are using a Mac, you can press ‘Cmd+Shift+I’.

2. Select the ‘Network’ tab (shows a little wifi symbol) and enable the ‘Preserve Log’ and ‘Disable Cache’ fields.
3. Reproduce the issue, such as visiting the URL you are having problems with.
4. Select the "Export Har" button (down arrow)
5. Name the file and save it to your computer

The resulting file is the HAR dump requested by the support engineer.

* Note that the Chromebook Best Practices Guide recommends blocking Developer Tools to ensure that users are unable to circumvent district policy or gain an unfair advantage over other students by reversing engineering Edtech applications that transmit insecure data or have confidential information hidden away in the code.