cblaisd

All of a sudden, for no reason at all, on a relative's computer for whom I am tech support (joy), Chrome has stopped running. Specifically,

a) Click on Chrome icon, the browser open but it just hangs connecting to the home page forever. Eventually I'll get a Chrome popup asking if I want to kill or wait.

b) When I close the browser, Chrome process (one instance of ~50K) is still running in Task Manager.

c) I thought that LAN/proxy settings might have gotten ticked wrong somehow, but I can't get to Chrome settings either.

d) Trying to open an Incognito window, same thing (someone on the the Googles suggested this)

e) I am stumped. Have spent a couple of hours searching and just don't know what to do.

f) I temporarily disabled the firewall (Norton Internet Security) and that made no difference.

Thinkpad x220, Win 7 Professional.

I'd love some help. Thank you!

NPF

The following page lists command line parameters that can be used to modify how Chrome is launched:

http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium...line-switches/

You need to launch it via the command prompt or to modify the shortcut/desktop icon with the relevant parameter.

In your case, I would try first the (--bwsi) or (--diagnostics).

It is possible that some extension is trying to hijack the browser. If so, the first option will let you examine what extensions are installed and permanently disable them.

cblaisd

Wow, thank you. And that is quite a list of switches. Looks very daunting. Will have to study on.

caGALINDO

download ccleaner, spybot, and an antivirus, boot safe mode, uninstall chrome, run ccleaner/spybot/antivirus, restart


buy them a mac, lol

LIH Prem

did you try the usual re-install and disable extensions (--disable-extensions)?

-David

arjunrc

Interestingly, I just bough a sparkling new iMac with 16GB RAM a month ago. The Mac kept freezing because of chrome - restart being the only option (tried resetting SMC/PMC/whatever else). Had to revert to Safari, making sure ChromeHelper was not running (that was the problem). Too bad as Chrome is my go to browser. Have no problems with my MBP, just the iMac....

cblaisd

Won't run. Same symptoms.

Using the diagnostics switch, I find the following

[FAIL] User preferences integrity
File too big

[FAIL] Local state integrity
File too big

No clue, and Google either had too much or too little info.

msb0b

If you can afford to clear your profile, go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome and rename the User Data folder to something else. That %LOCALAPPDATA% should expand to C:\Users\cblaisd\AppData\Local. If Chrome starts, you can restore the files and folders to User Data one by one and see what is the culprit.

There is an option in Chrome to keep Chrome running in the background that may be causing the Chrome process to persist. It is used by apps like GMail to notify you on the desktop.

cblaisd

Thank you. This just gets weirder.

Before seeing your post, I ended up uninstalling Chrome, and deleting the directories in AppData and Program Files folder. I then ran CCleaner, MalwareBytes.

I reinstalled Chrome and the same problem happens again. There is something really deeply hooked into Windows somewhere that I am just not understanding.

The only change now is that when closing Chrome, there process is now no longer in Task Manager as it was earlier.

h15t0r1an

Have you checked for Windows updates?

I seem to recall having very similar to this problem about 8 weeks ago on Windows 7. As well as ccleaner and malwarebytes (which found nothing) I think it finally cleared after 2 de-installs and re-installs of Chrome, losing all my extensions and having to re-download them and finally fixed after a second Windows 7 update from Microsoft was notified and this being downloaded and installed.

As antivirus failed to find anything I suspect an earlier Windows update that was somehow incompatible with Chrome was the cause.

Until it was solved I got so fed up that I switched to Mozilla for a while.

h15t0r1an

PS you might want to look in scheduler. You'd be surprised what you might find in there is being kicked off that you didn't ask for and you might find a recent update is kicking off a chrome process you don't need that is persistent.

caGALINDO

Does system restore still exist? (lol) You can try to restore to when it was working.

Try creating a new user in Windows, see if it happens in the new user account.

I also think it must be a Windows update thing.

antichef

You could try "Microsoft Fix It" to uninstall chrome, then do a fresh reinstall.

That should ensure you get rid of all the registry entries.

It is a simple solution that is often overlooked, made the same simple error myself with a Java problem earlier this week until I remembered this tool

LIH Prem

I tried google chrome beta on my mac and had a similar problem, where every tab crashed and even opening a new blank tab would crash. (I'd get the "aw snap" page on every page, including new tabs.)

The only way to recover was to kill off chrome and chrome helper, move the apps to the trash, empty the trash, remove application settings for chrome (ie: completely remove this directory ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome), download chrome and install, and after starting chrome, sign back in to google for sync to recover bookmarks, settings, extenstions etc. I did not download the beta again. I think I probably had some problematic extensions that are gone now. (I went to the other computer and disabled most extensions, especially any suspect ones, and that got picked up by google sync before starting over on the other computer.)

It does seem different from your problem, and yes, this wasn't windows, but I did have problems until I completely obliterated everything, including anything left running and anything left in the trash and started over from scratch with a completely new blank profile.

If the "Microsoft Fix It" thing also removes settings added by the app to the windows registry, that also might be worth a try after you completely obliterate all traces of the app and it's data that you can find and remove yourself.

Hopefully your relative is using google sync so they can recover bookmarks and settings etc. That made it less painful for me.

-David

cblaisd

I now have the computer in-hand; much easier than trying to mess with remotely.

Oddness continues.... Did all the Windows updates that had been overdue (only 43 of them !). Then reinstalled Chrome. No joy. Uninstalled Chrome, ran CCleaner on the registry. Downloaded and installed an older version of Chrome. No joy. Then tried your suggestion again of renaming the User Data folder. Started Chrome again, and

Eureka and violins! It runs. Just like before.

Does Chrome automatically push updates so that you don't have any choice about it? I'm wondering if there is something in the latest pushed build that is hoinky.


Last week, the same Chrome-no-run happened to ME all of a sudden from out of nowhere. Argh. I used System Restore to immediately revert to the previous day's Restore Point and that fixed the problem.

I'm embarrassed to say I have never heard of "Microsoft Fix It."

Thanks everyone, so very much. I hope my relative's ability to use Chrome successfully continues and that it's NOT a case of something about an automatically pushed update fouling it.