Google Chrome keeps crashing

hubb

I often get a "whoa Google Chrome has crashed" message. Sometimes Chrome is running but I can't see the websites. I click on the icons to different sites and nothing opens, but my task manager tells me Chrome is running. Very annoying as I have to re-boot my PC to get back to seeing my websites again.

LincolnshireYokel

Remove it from the system, (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs), reboot, reinstall, reboot. If that doesnt fix it then you need to do a soft reinstall of windows. Does everything else run ok ?

hubb

Yes but it's an 8 year old PC which is very very slow with only a GB or ram. I have had the windows automatic updates turned off for a couple of years as I was advised by someone that the updates were causing problems with not being able to boot.

LincolnshireYokel

hubb wrote: »

Yes but it's an 8 year old PC which is very very slow with only a GB or ram. I have had the windows automatic updates turned off for a couple of years as I was advised by someone that the updates were causing problems with not being able to boot.

Ah well, could well be its too far out of synch then. Ive found that you need to wipe and reload windows about every three years on a PC, which is what you may have to do, in which case you'll have to let it run all the updates, which will take overnight. If the machine hasn't been rebuilt for 8 years ill put money on it. Your boot problems could well be down to the HDD format starting to fail, so id go back to a low level format and rebuild from there. When was the last time you used a partition manager to scan for bad sectors and orphaned sectors ?

waddler_8

http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=142063

waddler_8

hubb wrote: »

but my task manager tells me Chrome is running. Very annoying as I have to re-boot my PC to get back to seeing my websites again.

Rather than rebooting, just end the chrome.exe process & then restart chrome.

hubb wrote: »

I have had the windows automatic updates turned off for a couple of years as I was advised by someone that the updates were causing problems with not being able to boot.

Have you been installing the updates manually? If not, your computer is more vulnerable to malware attacks.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/windows-update

LincolnshireYokel

When I ran the Support Team, we had standard images for every PC. We then had a simple strategy. If you cant fix the PC in 15 mins, you can reimage it in 10 mins.

The thing you have to get your head round is that for 90% of problems o na PC, you dont need to know what causes the problem, you just need to know how to fix it, and they arent the same thing at all by a long chalk. In most cases, unless its a hardware fault, reimaging the PC fixed anything, and we had standard images for all the PC;s we put out, and we could could load a new image on in 10 minutes.

The same applies here. If theres nothing on the PC that cant be restored off a CD (after its been backed up), and the windows installation is 8 years old and never been updated, then you can without doubt cure all ills, including the boot problem, in one fell swoop by just wiping the drive and realoding from scratch, (making sure you have all the system drivers and software keys on CD before you do that!!)

The difference it will make to the machine will be very noticable, it'll run faster for a start.

SO its a choice bewteen p*ssing about trying to put sticking plasters on the holes , or do a once off throrough job and start again. with a new bug free uptoi date install.

In this instance, from the cost and time point of view, its more efficient to rebuild. It'll save you no end of bolloxing about if you intend to hang onto the PC for any length of time. You can try and patch it as well, either strategy works, but one plan is smarter than the other.

Cash-Strapped.T32

My most commonly used fix to be honest. The "take off & nuke the site from orbit - It's the only way to be sure" option.

Then again since XP even I've had far fewer of those annoying little quests where you had to spend a weekend getting something to work, Windows has gotten far more reliable day to day & even though it's my most common ix, still it's not one I've had to use often at all, nothing like back under Win 9x.

Andrew1472

One that caused all sorts of weird symptoms in Chrome for me including crashes is easy to check and fix.
Type about:plugins in the address bar , click details in the top right corner to expand it and scroll down to flash. Disable all except the NPAPI version with AppData\Local\Google\Chrome as part of the location.

hubb

It did it again but this time I couldn't even open explorer. Again, my status shows both browsers are running but nothing on the screen. I tried ending the programs in task manager and it didn't make any difference. When I ended explorer, my whole desktop went blank with no icons-nothing. This is why I hate computers.

Surely it isn't worth investing any time and effort in this old machine when I can cut my losses and get a faster, more up to date one.

Cash-Strapped.T32

hubb wrote: »

When I ended explorer, my whole desktop went blank with no icons-nothing. This is why I hate computers.

That's what is supposed to happen.
Windows Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer) *is* the program that draws all those icons, toolbars, folders, and shortcuts to screen. Close Explorer, & all the "stuff", the screen furniture you click on will disappear.

Restart it (by going to New Task in task manager & type "Explorer") and it will re-appear, freshly loaded.

Programs, games, everything will still run without Windows Explorer, what it basically does is provide those icons & stuff you can click on, and when you click it, Explorer knows to "run" that program you clicked, or open that file you clicked, or delete that file you selected, etc..

Back in Quake 2 days under 9x I used to close Explorer before I used to run games, to free up a tiny bit more of the comp's resources, not that it did much help with my un-beastly machine..

Tbh I'd suggest again just reformatting the C:/ drive & be done with the hassle if you're getting lots of those little problems you can't otherwise fix..