On Endless OS 3.8 or older, in the built-in “Internet” web browser (also known as Chromium), you may not be able to stay logged into Gmail or other Google services. A few seconds after you log into your Google account, you may be logged out of the Google service you are using and redirected back to the login page.
If you are using a standard Intel or AMD PC, which is supported by Endless OS 3.9 or later, upgrade to the latest available version of Endless OS. If you are already running Endless OS 3.9.2 or newer, check the App Center for updates to Chromium. After you have performed these updates, the problem will be resolved.
On the Endless Mini (EC-100) mini-PC, Endless OS 3.8 is the last available version of the OS, so no updated version is available. In this case, you can work around the problem as follows:
Open the Terminal app
Copy-paste the following command , then press the Enter key to run the command.
sudo mkdir -p /etc/chromium-browser/policies/managed
You may be prompted for your user account password. Your password may not appear as you type it in, but if prompted, type it in anyway and press Enter.
Copy-paste the following command, then press the Enter key to run the command.
echo '{"BrowserSignin": 0}' | sudo tee /etc/chromium-browser/policies/managed/disable-signin.json
You may be prompted for your user account password. Your password may not appear as you type it in, but if prompted, type it in anyway and press Enter.
Now restart your computer. The next time you start the browser, you should be able to log into Google services once again.
The following supplemental information is intended for developers and technicians.
“Internet” is based on Chromium, the open-source version of Google Chrome. Historically, Google had permitted third-party versions of Chromium to use the “Chrome Sync” feature, where your bookmarks, passwords, and settings are synchronised between your devices via Google's server. Logging into Gmail or other Google services also logs the web browser itself into Chrome Sync with the same Google account.
In early 2021, Google restricted this feature to official versions of Google Chrome. This change caused the behaviour described above, because the browser would try and fail to log into Chrome Sync, which causes it to also log out of other Google services. The Endless OS version of Chromium had to be updated to fully disable Chrome Sync to restore the ability to use Gmail and other Google services.
Prior to Endless OS 3.9.2, Chromium (branded as “Internet”) was built into Endless OS itself.