issue with google chrome not opening for student users

[rorymc89]

We keep having an issue with google chrome not opening for end users I have literally tried everything, editing the chrome GPO, deleting the chrome user profile and deleting the students roaming profile. If there is anyone out there with any information on how to beat this I would much appreciate it!

 

cheers

[Lewys]

Is it just student's that are having an issue? Staff/yourself are fine?

 

Can you remove all the policies related to Chrome. Best to get it working first, before starting to apply those.

[Michael]

So if they try and run Chrome (with Task Manager open) does the process start? Other than something third party or Software Restriction Policies, it's strange that Chrome doesn't open. Does the Event log show anything useful?

[srochford]

Are you using roaming profiles? if so, are students signing into Chrome and configuring it to allow apps to run in the background?

 

there seems to be a bug in Chrome which causes this to fail in the way you describe; when the user logs on, Chrome auto-starts in the background and this then blocks Chrome starting in the foreground.

 

Open task manager immediately after logon but before trying to launch Chrome - check to see if a Chrome process is already running. If it is, then kill it and see if Chrome now launches OK.

 

If that works, you need to either stop students from using background apps or add something to your login script to kill any running instances of Chrome.

 

We think that this is a bug introduced by a recent update to Chrome; we're sort of hoping that Google will fix it soon (but I'm not holding my breath!)

[witch]

This has happened to me at both schools in the last few days - several members of staff can no longer open Chrome.

Will have to look into the running instances

[witch]

Help!

Come back after half term and have been accosted by several more members of staff who can no longer open and run Chrome. Does anyone have any new ideas on how to fix this?

[bossman]

@witch

 

What AV are you running in the school?

 

Apparently Norton IPS has been playing havoc with IE11 so it may also have affected Google Chrome,

 

https://community.norton.com/en/forums/tonights-update-crashing-ie11

 

I realise its 2 days old but may have a bearing?

[witch]

ESET

[Ephelyon]

Does Chrome launch and then disappear?

 

If so, watch out! You might have the Caphaw worm!

[witch]

No

It doesn't launch at all or else I get a blank window and spinner

[Ephelyon]

That's somewhat of a relief, then. We contracted it last year... :/

 

I currently find, as others have said, that from initial logon I have to kill off chrome.exe in Task Manager before Chrome will launch for me. Think it's a plugin like Hangouts or something.

[witch]

Anybody got any new insights into this?

My other school now has issues for students opening Chrome - basically, they can't. Nothing happens.

It seems to run alright if you can run it as admin but the students can't.

Help! They need it for safer internet evening TONIGHT

[Ephelyon]

Can you (briefly) unrestrict Task Manager for students, log in as one and see whether chrome.exe is running once they've logged on but before trying to run Chrome itself?

 

If it is, it's the same issue a number of people are having and we can script up a way to kill it off post-logon.

[witch]

Wouldnt know how to do that though

[DCUK6]

Do you have impero or similar that you can run commands with.

 

Thinking about opening chrome with

--disable-extensions

or

--safe-plugins

 

 

Also, task manager is probably removed with a GPO

The bit you need to disable to show it again is

"User Configuration" -> "Administrative Templates" -> "System" -> "Ctrl+Alt+Del Options"

Then disable remove task manager.

 

Then gpupdate the machine. If whoever created the gpo's has done it tidely then this should work and will only require changing in the one policy.

 

 

 

To kill it i think the command is something like

Taskkill /IM chrome.exe /F

I would just add that to the logon script. Would be weird if it is opening on logon. Somethings trying to get out.

Edited March 4, 2015 by DCUK6

[witch]

It turns out in that school the students can see task manager but either chrome.exe doesn't come up or killing it makes no difference - still won't open

[Ephelyon]

Tried clearing the User Data folder out of Local AppData as per our PMs?

[witch]

Yep

No change

[Ephelyon]

Ideally you'd want to get Process Monitor on this kind of thing I think, but that's a significant analysis... :/

[Tesla]

I've seen instances in the past where chrome has updated, but the shortcut, for whatever reason, hasn't, so it tries to open an older version of chrome, and fails. Might be something to do with this?

[witch]

I did wonder about that and in a couple of cases if you open Chrome from program files rather than the shortcut that did seem to work - but only for staff - and not all of them.

[Tall_Paul]

I've seen something similar to this when a user's Chrome profile gets corrupted.

 

To fix it you have to first of all kill Chrome (if it's running in the background). AOMEI Remote Process Explorer is very handy, or the Sysinternals suite (pslist and pskill).

 

Then you need to rename C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default to something like 'Default.old'

 

Then try opening Chrome again. If it opens then it was the profile.

[witch]

Renamed chrome in app data.

Deleted all profiles just for the giggles

No change

[Ephelyon]

Uninstall/re-install Chrome at a lower update level - maybe grab this MSI?

[witch]

Ta

Will look at tomorrow