Chrome not opening - CC4

[jaf]

Hi, we have a recurring problem with student and teacher accounts whereby if they click on the Chrome icon in the taskbar or from a start menu shortcut, Chrome refuses to open. After a profile reset this works again so it looks like something is being corrupted in the user's profile to prevent Chrome opening. I originally thought it was due to the local profile as that is where the Chrome data is written to but after a profile reset behaves correctly so looks like it is something in the roaming profile.

Has anyone experienced this before and know why this keeps happening?

Network is RM CC4/Windows 7 clients.

Thanks

[bossman]

@jaf:

 

I have never used Chrome on the network as I have always found IE relevant to our schools needs but I do know that Chrome utilises IE settings so this could be a factor behind it.

 

Have you not upgraded to IE11 yet? it works remarkably well with most sites and only the few have to be added to the compatibility view in IE to work, not had any problems here with it so far even with youtube videos as some have,

 

I would think that it could be possible that the users profiles are not working correctly with Chrome and that is why you are constantly having to reset them,

 

Good luck

[jaf]

Thanks for your thoughts, we do have IE11 deployed as a 'back-up' but as we use Google Docs substantially, Chrome is what most people use by default as Google Docs generally donesn't render as well in IE.

[sted]

similar issue at one school of you go to task manager and kill the chrome processes it will staet bit often then says chrome wasnt closed correctly. keeps recurring and i cant see why and i cant make it do it on my test account either. vanilla network ie 11 and chrome

[dooley_do]

I have the same issue in a standard Windows 7 x64 environment with roaming profiles. User local profiles are deleted at logoff. I can't make it happen with a test account but I think it might be related to users who sign into Chrome, perhaps some add-ins/apps they have installed are screwing it? If I delete the users profile they can load it at next attempt but next login after that it fails to load.

[HTCPCP]

We use Chrome Enterprise without any issues at all on CC4. When we were rolling it out originally though, we did notice that it appeared as installed but wasn't properly, but a right click and repair worked. However we rolled it out in the summer so we had reset everyones profiles before they logged in. This hasn't been done in my primary schools, however there hasn't seemed to be this issue except in the odd case for staff.

 

However, does this issue happen on all machines including recently rebuilt machines? Also what OS are you using on CC4?

[dooley_do]

I believe we have resolved this. It is caused by users having "Enable Chrome to run in the background" enabled. This then creates a Run key in the users registry which makes Chrome run at logon but with no windows. This process seems to then stop a real instance of Chrome from appearing the foreground. I disabled the ability to run in the background via GPO to prevent the problem. I still needed to remove that key from users who already had it present though.

[sted]

I believe we have resolved this. It is caused by users having "Enable Chrome to run in the background" enabled. This then creates a Run key in the users registry which makes Chrome run at logon but with no windows. This process seems to then stop a real instance of Chrome from appearing the foreground. I disabled the ability to run in the background via GPO to prevent the problem. I still needed to remove that key from users who already had it present though.

 

where in gpo is this I cant find it?

[Arthur]

where in gpo is this I can't find it?

Here...

 

Admin Templates » Google » Google Chrome » Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed

 

This is one of the first things I disabled on our old CC3 network since it also prevents users from opening Chrome when logged into the same account on multiple computers (due to the redirected AppData).

Edited October 28, 2014 by Arthur

[JHLEHS]

@Arthur are you suggesting that disabling the above GPO enable users with same account to access chrome on multiple computers. We have this problem, but I think this is because of redirected appdata .lck file. A fix which was suggested was to direct this to your server itself rather than the users path, I have not tried this as I believe this will cause all sort of replication problems.

[Arthur]

are you suggesting that disabling the above GPO enable users with same account to access chrome on multiple computers.

Unfortunately not. If a user leaves Chrome open on a computer they would still be unable to open the browser on the others due to the redirected AppData.

 

A lot of users may not realise that Chrome remains open in the background, so disabling the GPO above would only prevent the situation where they think they have closed Chrome but actually haven't, and then find they can't open Chrome on other computers because they are still logged in on a computer elsewhere.

[JHLEHS]

Unfortunately not. If a user leaves Chrome open on a computer they would still be unable to open the browser on the others due to the redirected AppData.

 

A lot of users may not realise that Chrome remains open in the background, so disabling the GPO above would only prevent the situation where they think they have closed Chrome but actually haven't, and then find they can't open Chrome on other computers because they are still logged in on a computer elsewhere.

Thanks for clearing this up, I know it's a shame we have just got use to informing staff not to have two Chromes open on different machines, not a problem for students as they are restricted to one PC at one time.

[flyinghaggis]

Here...

 

Admin Templates » Google » Google Chrome » Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed

 

This is one of the first things I disabled on our old CC3 network since it also prevents users from opening Chrome when logged into the same account on multiple computers (due to the redirected AppData).

@Arthur @dooley_do

 

Thanks for the suggestion. We've having similar sounding issues so I've set this policy to disabled. Hopefully will resolve the problem as killing the process fixes it so I'm pretty sure it's a background process chrome is running on login which is causing the issue.

[flyinghaggis]

Thanks for clearing this up, I know it's a shame we have just got use to informing staff not to have two Chromes open on different machines, not a problem for students as they are restricted to one PC at one time.

 

Has anyone found a fix for this issue with Chrome and roaming profiles yet by the way? I'd tried redirecting the appdata but as you've suggested it causes Chrome to crash if you run it on more than one computer at a time. I can't see staff being willing to tolerate a limitation like that in our school. Plus it will raise a lot of support calls with Chrome crashing and people not realising the cause so I'm reluctant to do it anyway.

Edited March 6, 2015 by flyinghaggis

[JHLEHS]

@Arthur's change in the GPO worked well for me

[flyinghaggis]

@Arthur's change in the GPO worked well for me

 

I take it that doesn't fix the issue with users being unable to run Chrome on multiple computers at the same time using a redirected roaming profile though? The issue with us is that we've moved to Google Apps so Chrome is literally the first thing 90% or staff run when they log in and they're bound to leave it running on a computer when they walk away from it to log on elsewhere.

Edited March 6, 2015 by flyinghaggis

[JHLEHS]

I take it that doesn't fix the issue with users being unable to run Chrome on multiple computers at the same time using a redirected roaming profile though? The issue with us is that we've moved to Google Apps so Chrome is literally the first thing 90% or staff run when they log in and they're bound to leave it running on a computer when they walk away from it to log on elsewhere.

 

Yes it does, just tested this on my network with Roaming Profiles.

 

Thanks,

James.