[Update: Resolved] Google Chrome not working, extensions crashing on startup or getting untitled window? Fix out in latest beta

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on May 21, 2021) follows:

Google Chrome is by far one of the most popular web browsers around the world thanks to the early lead Google managed to secure against other web browsers years ago.

Google has also been working to reduce Chrome’s notoriously high resource usage as well as add new useful features such as the Reading List.

That said, Google Chrome users often run into other issues, the most common of which results in the browser throwing the ‘Aw, Snap’ message.

But now many Google Chrome users have taken to the company’s community forums, Reddit, and Twitter saying that it’s not working, extensions are crashing on startup or they’re seeing an untitled window.

We’ve shared some reports from affected users below for reference:

As soon as I open Chrome, the page is blank and the only thing shown is a frowny face in the tab that says ‘crashed.’ I can’t access any pages at all, including those in the 3-dot menu like Settings other tools. It all results in the same blank tab. I’m running windows 10. (Source)

how do i get help? Every time i launch chrome, all my extensions crash and i cant load any web pages. Not even settings. Ive tried restarting, reinstalling, updating windows, updating my GPU, nothing has worked. (Source)

Apparently Google Chrome isn’t working currently. On start all extensions crash immediately, sites won’t load (empty tab, with name “unknown”) and even chrome://help or chrome://extensions doesn’t load. (Source)

Reports saying Google Chrome is not working started popping up only a few hours ago and it appears that it’s affecting users on Windows 10 machines.

Given the influx of reports from users over the past few hours, it’s safe to say that this is a widespread issue.

Luckily, a Gold Product Expert on the community forums has confirmed that the issue appears to be with the User Data directory that stores information on the current install.

So as a temporary workaround, installing Google Chrome Beta should fix the problem according to the Product Expert.

You can use any other web browser such as Microsoft Edge to download and install the latest Chrome Beta.

It appears that this is to do with the User Data directory which stores information on the current install, as such using Chrome Beta will resolve the issue.

Alternatively, you can even try to re-run the Chrome installer to see if it will repair your install:

As an additional step you can try to re-run the Chrome installer to see if it will repair your install, you can download the chrome stable installer from https://www.google.com/chrome

The Product Expert has also shared another workaround that involves re-creating the user-profile directory. However, this might lead to data loss such as passwords, bookmarks, and site data, in case you’ve not enabled sync.

1. Ensure your Sync data is accurate at https://chrome.google.com/sync and passwords appear at https://passwords.google.com (If you have a passphrase they will not but they should be reflected in the sync data link)
2. Close any open Chrome instance
3. Open File Explorer and navigate to: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data
4. Delete the “Local State” file
5. Re-Open Chrome

If the above steps don’t resolve the problem then try the following
1. Open File Explorer and navigate to: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data
2. Take a copy of everything in this directory and store it somewhere such as your desktop
3. Rename the “User Data” folder to something other than User Data
4. Re-Open Chrome

Many users have confirmed that these workarounds fixed the issue for them. However, if Google Chrome still is not working on your Windows 10 machine, feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Google has not yet acknowledged the problem publicly. But we expect the bug to be fixed sooner rather than later.

As usual, we’ll keep tabs on the situation and will post an update if and when there are any further developments.

02:45 pm (IST): Google has confirmed that they have released a fix for the crashing issue on Chrome. A Google employee has also shared the steps that users can take to fix the problem on Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS.

For impacted Windows devices follow these steps:
1. Quit any open Chrome windows.
2. Re-open Chrome. You will still see the broken behavior.
3. Keep Chrome open for about 5 minutes.
4. After 5 minutes quit Chrome and then relaunch Chrome. The behavior should be resolved.

For impacted Linux devices follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the directory containing the Chrome user profile:
– .config/google-chrome/
2. Delete the contents of the [Chrome user profile]\Origin Trials subdirectory
– This should include a “1.0.0.7” directory
3. Delete the [Chrome user profile]Local State file
4. Start Chrome, which should load as expected

For impacted Chrome OS devices:
Recover your Chromebook following the steps listed in this Help article

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