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A collegue has encountered a problem with Chrome that I've never seen before and, after trying to search for it, neither has anybody else. I hope somebody here will recognize it.

When starting Chrome browser (version 33), the first tab works fine; it shows the thumbnails and you can type a URL and it'll happily go there or show search results.

On any consecutive tab; Chrome does not show the thumbnails, nor can you navigate to any URL. Whatever I try, it just shows the spinner (counter clock-wise) forever. This also happens when I try to access internal pages like the extensions or about page (they both work fine on the first tab).

There were only two extensions installed; a Google Docs extension and a McAfee extension (try as I might, collegues continue to believe "well-known brand" != "crapware"). Other browsers and applications do not seem to be affected by whatever the cause is.

Does anybody know what the problem might be and how to fix it?

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  • 2
    Have you tested if disabling the extensions resolves the problem?
    – Dan D.
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 8:26
  • 1
    turn on sync, then delete and reinstall...finding the cause might take a while:) Though McAfee does sound like its most likely to hijack the behavour of tabs and links.
    – cjb110
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 8:44
  • @Dan D: disabling extensions didn't work. Will try sync+uninstall+install later today, when my collegue is AFK.
    – Martijn
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 10:05
  • Just got around to doing uninstall+install; problem still exists (nothing changed).
    – Martijn
    Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 9:35
  • Try disabling "GPU compositing on all pages" in about:flags, if this helps then there is a conflict with the display driver. Another one is GPU Hardware Acceleration. Also see if Disable PepperFlash in Chrome is relevant here.
    – harrymc
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 14:39

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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Have you tried to reset your chrome browser? It might fix everything for you Try it once:

  1. Click/tap on the Chrome menu
  2. Click/tap on Settings.
  3. Click/tap on Show advanced settings.
  4. Scroll down to the Reset browser settings section, and click/tap on the Reset browser settings button.
  5. When prompted, click/tap on Reset to approve.

See if it works for you.

Here's Google's documentation over Chrome's Reset browser feature.

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0

I'm not sure what's causing the problem, but it could have something to do with a faulty user profile.

The default user profile is not changed when you update the web browser.
You can find it in the following location (on Windows 7 or later)

%appdata%\..\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\

Close Google Chrome and browse to that location using Windows Explorer or by entering the path into the "Run" command and make a copy of the Default folder and store it somewhere safe, then delete the Default folder from that location and try restarting Google Chrome.

EDIT: If that doesn't work, consider downloading the portable version of Google Chrome

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  • After removing the Default folder, I could access the Settings menu and applied @Saurabh Sharma's fix. After this upto three tabs would open (the startup one and two additional tabs). Any tabs beyond this still don't respond.
    – Martijn
    Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 11:19
  • If possible, I'd recommend downloading the portable version of Google Chrome (check my answer for the link) and see if the problem persists with the portable version as well. If it does, it could mean your computer is running out of memory to open new tabs. However if you have no problems with the portable version, you could try removing the entire "Chrome" folder from *%appdata%\..\Local\Google* and see if that helps. Make sure you backup the folder before you remove it, so you don't get any nasty surprises.
    – Vinayak
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 12:50
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Please try to stop all extension using chrome://extensions/ then confirm whether it works or not. Please put this url chrome://newtab in the corrupt tab and confirm how it will be. Please use extension New tab to reset tab or set favourite tab after close all extensions. It might be fixed in some cases.

Google extension - new tab

After it's fixed just turned off the extension on chrome://extensions/

Maybe you can confirm with other user account of OS or safe boot mode.

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-1

I had the same issue and just had to disable Closed Captions via Chrome audio control.

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  • Are you sure your symptoms were the same as those OP noted? It seems a leap that closed captioning prevents thumbnail generation. Also, note this question is VERY old, and you are likely using a very different build of Chrome than OP was.
    – music2myear
    Commented Jun 14, 2021 at 20:41

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