IPC Inspector

CefIpcInspector is a built-in developer overlay for inspecting IPC traffic between Godot and CEF renderer processes for a specific CefTexture.

It helps you verify:

• Whether IPC is flowing in both directions
• Which lane is used (text, binary, data)
• The actual payload preview and byte size
• Message order and timing

Demo Video

Availability

For safety, IPC inspector is only enabled when:

• Godot runs in debug mode (OS.is_debug_build() == true), or
• Running from the editor (Engine.is_editor_hint() == true)

In release builds, the inspector UI is not initialized.

Quick Start

1. Add both CefTexture and CefIpcInspector to your scene.
2. In the Inspector panel, drag your CefTexture node into target_cef_texture.
3. Run the scene in editor/debug mode.
4. Click IPC Inspector in the bottom-right corner to open the panel.

The inspector will start listening immediately after the target is assigned.

Panel Features

• All / Incoming / Outgoing filter by message direction
• Clear resets the current history
• Show more / Show less expands long payloads
• Maximum history is 500 messages (oldest entries are dropped first)

debug_ipc_message Payload

The inspector internally listens to CefTexture.debug_ipc_message(event: Variant) where event is a Dictionary:

Key	Type	Description
direction	String	to_renderer or to_godot
lane	String	text, binary, or data
body	String	Payload preview (binary is shown as hex preview)
timestamp_unix_ms	int	Unix timestamp in milliseconds
body_size_bytes	int	Original payload size in bytes

Troubleshooting

• Panel never appears:
  • Confirm you are in debug build or editor run mode.
• Assign target_cef_texture to a CefTexture node.:
  • Set target_cef_texture to the actual browser node.
• No messages shown:
  • Confirm messages are sent, and check the current direction filter. You can also send quick test messages from the Chrome DevTools REPL.
• Missing large data messages:
  • Oversized IPC data payloads can be dropped by safety limits and logged.