I didnt know that you could take a break on the google chrome extension for about 6 months but now that I know I can the app has become only marginally useful. There should be a deep focus mode and it should be able to interface with the opal app on my Iphone.
The app for the iPhone sucks, it crashes constantly and if I do delete it on occasion it makes me take a whole new test to get back in and forgets all my blocks. Focus on getting the app to stop crashing and be more user friendly. I dont give a fuck about rocks and I dont want notifications from an app thats supposed to help me focus - not give me notifications on my phone that dont matter.
@kenneth I have not been able to block Chrome iOS websites for over two weeks. I have sent numerous bug reports and the team just answers āHave you tried to reload blocks?ā or āWe no longer support Chrome extension,ā neither of which is helpful. Further, I canāt add Chrome websites I havenāt visited (i.e. TikTok, which Iāve never actually visited) to the blocklist. Can you fix these issues ASAP? The only reason I pay for Opal is because of its ability to block Chrome websites!
I wanted to personally apologise for the issue your encountered.
We have identified an issue that was introduced in V3.45 (released on Dec 5 2023) where Opal has stopped blocking Websites on Chrome and other third party browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Brave, etc).
We just fixed this issue and it will be included in the next release of Opal on Monday. If you update your app on Monday it will be fixed.
I am sorry about this experience and it is not the experience we want gems to have. It took us more than than is acceptable to identify the issue since it is critical - and we will strive to identify and fix issues faster in the future. Thank you for your report, which helped us identify and fix the issue.
Hi,
Iāve added Facebook url in the list of websites/urls to be blocked. However I can still access Facebook via Chrome whereas itās blocked on safari. Is there a fix for that?
Interestingly within chrome itās blocked at one tab and on other I can still access it, even after refreshing that page.
Hi!
First of all, I really like Opal and itās a good app to use paired with my other productivity app.
Something that has come to my attention is the fact that if you block a website in a search engine (in my case, the Ecosia app), it doesnāt reblock itself after the time limit is up (in my case 5 minutes). To put it in a situation, I unblock Facebook for 5 minutes, but after 5 minutes, the website isnāt blocked and I can keep mindlessly scrolling on Facebook.
The only way Iāve realised I can make sure the website gets reblocked, is if I fully close my app, which isnāt something you find yourself easily able to do when youāre mindlessly scrolling. Otherwise, the website can still be used, even if I just leave the app and come back later.
I hope Iāve been able to make myself be understood and I hope something can be done about it! Iām sure other people have a similar experience Opal is really good to hinder me from going on Facebook too much, but once I unblock it for 5 minutes itās easy for me to fall back in this pattern
Happy to help. To clarify, are you using Facebook on a Chrome extension? If so, unfortunately, Apple has implemented some parameters that make Chrome blocking rather difficult. To bypass this, weād recommend ensuring that you add a block to Chrome in your Session:
I hope that helps, and sorry for the delay in response!
After several tries, I finally understand how to reply to posts on this forum. The problem I am mentioning is entirely different from the one the first post about the websites not being blocked on chrome. In my case, Opal effectively blocks Facebook on Ecosia, and I cannot access it unless I use one of my unblocks.
The problem I am however facing, is that contrary to the app Messenger, the website Facebook doesnāt automatically reblocks. To try to be more clear, after the time of my unblock is used up, messenger gets blocked again. This doesnāt happen with Facebook: if I decided to unblock Facebook for 5 minutes to doom scroll just a bit, I will still be able to doom scroll after 5 minutes, because the website doesnāt get blocked by Opal. For Facebook to be blocked again, I need to manually quit Ecosia and restart it (which isnāt likely to happen when Iām doomscrolling on Facebook).
I hope Iāve made my issue a bit more clear. Opal is amazing to stop procrastination, but this lack of reblocking annihilates any usefulness that Opal has. Could something be done about it? Just today Iāve doomscrolled for over 2 hours on Facebook because Opal doesnāt block it again after the time limit is over (correcting this would thus greatly help me )
Also, if messenger could stop being blocked when we want only Facebook to be blocked, that would be amazing, poor messenger being the ācollateral damageā of blocking Facebook
I have the chrome extension synced to the iPhone app. But when I start a Focus session on the app, nothing gets blocked in Chrome. I tested with a Whitelist instead, and that gets synced, but for Blocklists nothing gets blocked in Chrome.
Although your Sessions will automatically be imported from your iPhone to your Chrome extension, you will need to recreate the Block List in the Chrome extension to select websites you want to block.
The problem is that I can only edit the block list in the chrome extension when sync is off. When I turn on sync, it deselects all the toggles for sites in the block list.
I signed into the Opal app on Chrome, and it manages to recognise my scheduled work and wind-down times. However, the settings for Chrome allow me to take a break whenever I want, while on my phone they are set to āTimeoutā. Is there any way I can change this? It is far too easy to take a break!
Opal is really good to hinder me from going on Facebook too much, but once I unblock it for 5 minutes itās easy for me to fall back in this pattern 
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