[Update: Official workaound] Google Chrome crashing while printing? Fix should be coming soon

This story is being continuously updated…. New updates are being added at the bottom…..

Original story (from May 14) follows:

Google Chrome pushed a stable channel update for Windows, Linux and Mac back in March, that bumped the version to 73.0.3683.75. The key highlight of the update was the introduction of Dark Mode on mac OS, which was made available for Windows 10 with the subsequent v74 update.

While some appreciated the Dark Mode feature, many Windows and Mac users were confused and looking for ways to revert back the change. Another Chrome 73/74 problem that we highlighted left users complaining about the download bar becoming unreadable due to improper color combination.

While Chrome’s download bar glitch still awaits a fix, we have now stumbled upon yet another Chrome 73 update instigated issue, wherein the browser reportedly crashes while executing a print command.

Users say, as soon as they click on the Print icon or Ctrl+P, Chrome closes/crashes while the print preview screen is trying to load. Therefore, they are unable to get to the final window where one can click on the Print option to accomplish the command as the preview either crashes or keeps loading.

Here’s a user shared image of the Print preview that keeps loading:

For a quick glance, here’s how some of the affected users word the problem behavior across the company’s official Google Chrome help forum:

I’m running Chrome version 73.0.3683.103 (Official Build) (64-bit) on a Dell desktop computer. All of a sudden it will not load Print Preview. I select Print and it will not complete this step – it just sits at Loading preview with 3 dancing dots. I’m reasonably computer literate (66 years old) but I can’t figure out what is going on.

Everytime I try to print from Chrome, (recipes from Facebook, labels from UPS, etc.) the entire browser shuts down and I can’t print. Word, Excel, etc all still print okay so I know it isn’t the printer, or the connections.

If we download a doc, open it in PDF viewer/word etc it prints fine, but from Chrome it doesn’t even arrive at the print queue.

As far as we can see, the problem specifically effects Windows 10 on a 64 bit processor running Google Chrome browser v73 or later. Apart from the company’s official help forum, three separate threads are running at Chromium’s official issue tracking website discussing the same problem.

Here’s how a Chromium team member gave an insight about what’s going on related to this bug:

What’s good is that this print-related problem has been officially acknowledged at Chromium’s issue tracker. A few days back, one of the Chromium team members said the fix should be available in Chrome Canary.

Fix sent out for review. Hope to have it available in Chrome Canary in a few days

Then the same Chromium team member informed the affected users that the fix for the problem should be included in Chrome Canary v76.0.3791.0 (or later).

The above fix should be in 76.0.3791.0 or newer in the near future. Please try Chrome Canary next Monday and see if that version resolves this crash.

Chrome Canary, as some of you may be aware is an experimental version of Google Chrome, one of the four release channels of Chrome browser. Chrome Canary is more raw and unfinished compared to the other three channels i.e. beta, devs and stable.

Coming back to the fix, a few hours back, the Chromium team member asked the affected users to try Chrome Canary v76.0.3793.x to see if the print-related issue has been resolved for them.

The current Google Chrome Canary is 76.0.3793.x. Please give that a try and see if it resolves this issue.

As soon as they asked users to try the Canary version that carries the fix, one of the complainants reverted back saying the problem has been resolved from them at least.

While it appears the problem has been fixed internally, affected users on the stable channel will have to wait until the next Chrome update gets rolling. We hope that happens soon.

Meanwhile, apart from using browsers other than Chrome, a temporary workaround that appears to help is to disable print preview by starting Chrome with the –disable-print-preview command-line option. But the only limitation is that disabling print preview takes away the Save as PDF option.

Here’s how a user explains it:

In case you give the workaround a try, do let us know how it goes. Rest, like always, we are keeping an active tab on all related developments and will update the story as and when any new information comes to our sight.

As per the latest statement coming from a Google employee at Calendar help forums, while the printing issue should now be resolved, if you’re still facing it, here’s a workaround that you can try:

This issue has been resolved. If you are still unable to print regularly, please open a new thread and we will review.

Google Calendar was experiencing an issue printing from the most recent version of Chrome (77.0.3865.75). As a workaround, download your calendar as a PDF and then print.

P.S. For more Google Chrome related bus & issues, news and stories, you may head here.

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