For months I’ve been fighting with this error in my Chrome Internet browser. Several times I’ve searched for a fix or explanation without any luck. Today Google Search came up with an answer. \o/
The fix is not as elegant as I would like. It also reveals a lot about the workings of Chrome. The most negative part of this fix is the lost of the browser history. You can try the fix in two stages to see if you can keep your history. OR… read through the entire article here and try the alternate fix near the end.
The Fix
- Close Chrome
- Open your Task Manager. You can right click on empty background in the bottom tool bar and select Task Manager.
- Select the Processes tab.
- Click the column heading name Image Name to sort the display on names.
- Kill any processes named chrome.exe. Right-click the process and select kill. You get an ‘are you sure?’ You are.
- This is the end of the first step. Launch Chrome and see if this has fixed the problem. Often you’ll hear the solution as Reboot the computer. Rebooting kills this process. Manually killing it is much faster and easier.
The Fix Continued
If you are still getting the error, the problem has gotten into the history files of Chrome. So, you need to do some more work.
- Close Chrome and via the 6 steps above, make sure all the Chrome process have been stopped.
- Navigate to the history files.
- Vista/Win7: C:\users\[win_login_ID]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
- Win XP: C:\Document and Settings\[your user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
- Delete all the files that start with the word ‘history’.
- Start Chrome.
This second set of steps will wipe the history you see when pressing Ctrl-H and your Most Recently Visited page. But, the annoying error messages go away.
Not the Only Problem and Fix
Also, if you save downloaded files to USB drives, removing the USB drive can cause the error.
For others their Android connection causes the problem.
Mostly Caused By
It seems the problem is mostly associated with downloaded files. Several people claim the problem can be fixed by clearing Chrome’s download history.
Summing Up
Depending on what you think may be causing the problem for you, try the download history clear first and then try the more drastic general history clear.
I avoid the error by having a diskette in the A: drive.
Of course, when I restart it’s still in so it causes an error until I eject it.