How to Verify and Troubleshoot a Helperbird Managed Deployment

After deploying Helperbird with Intune, Group Policy, Jamf, or the Google Admin console, use this guide to confirm it worked — and to fix it if it didn't.

Step 1: Confirm the policies reached the browser

On a managed device, open the browser's policy page and click Reload policies:

• Chrome: chrome://policy
• Edge: edge://policy
• Firefox: about:policies → Active tab

You should see:

1. ExtensionInstallForcelist (Chrome/Edge) or ExtensionSettings (Firefox) listing the Helperbird ID — confirms the force-install policy arrived.
2. Helperbird's managed values (subKey, isAdminControl, and any optional keys) listed under its 3rd-party / extension policies — confirms the configuration arrived.

If the policy page shows nothing, the policy hasn't reached the device yet — force a sync (Intune) or run gpupdate /force (Group Policy), then reload.

Step 2: Confirm the subscription key activated

1. Open the extensions page (chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, or about:addons). Helperbird should be present and marked "Installed by your organization" — users can't remove it.
2. Open Helperbird. With isAdminControl applied, organisation-managed settings are locked and Pro features are unlocked.

Troubleshooting

Helperbird isn't installing

• Policy not synced yet — allow up to 8 hours (Intune) or force a sync / gpupdate /force.
• Wrong ID for the browser — Chrome uses ahmapmilbkfamljbpgphfndeemhnajme; Edge uses bkibfggdahioahpokehoiimdmdjefjmd; Firefox uses [email protected]. They are not interchangeable.
• Missing update URL (Chrome) — Chrome force-install entries must end with ;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx. (Edge from the Edge store needs only the ID.)
• Network blocked — the device must reach clients2.google.com (Chrome), edge.microsoft.com (Edge), or addons.mozilla.org (Firefox) to download the extension.
• A blanket block is winning — if extensions are blocked org-wide (ExtensionInstallBlocklist: *), force-install still works, but see Allowlist Helperbird when extensions are blocked.

The policy installs but Pro isn't active

• isAdminControl isn't set to true/1 — it is the master switch; without it, subKey and every other admin value are ignored.
• The subKey value is wrong or empty — re-check the value against your enterprise key.
• Value wrapper used in the wrong place — the {"Value": …} wrapper is only for the Google Admin console "Policy for extensions" field. In the Windows registry, macOS plist, and Firefox 3rdparty, values are flat (e.g. a subKey string and an isAdminControl DWORD/boolean).

Settings aren't locked / users can still change them

• This is also isAdminControl — when it's true, admin-managed keys are applied and locked; when false, they're removed and the user regains control.

References

• Chrome Enterprise – Understand Chrome policy management
• Chromium – Configuring policy for extensions
• Mozilla – Customizing Firefox using policies.json

Need Additional Help?

Still stuck? Reach out to our Helperbird support team with a screenshot of your chrome://policy (or equivalent) page and we'll help you pinpoint it.