If you are seeing this problem, it is annoying. The fix that Google Chrome Support recommends is a disaster. One loses all their browser data, bookmarks, passwords, etc. For someone that researches online that would be a disaster.

Google Chrome Error: Your Profile Could not be opened correctly

Fortunately, there is a fix that may get you going and save your data.

The Google Support fix is here: Create a new browser user profile. I don’t recommend it except as a last resort.

Google Support has a troubleshooting guide: Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. These are good steps to try, but don’t wipe out files or your profile.

This is annoying problem in Google Chrome. It has re-occurred on and off over some years, as shown by a search on the error message. If one loses all their profile information every few months, Google Chrome would be an unusable browser.

Lately Chrome has been a bit of a problem. I suspect this is caused by their converting to HTML5 and OpenGL. We have already seen nVidia and Adobe’s Flash/Shockwave having problems with OpenGL. But, I have no real idea what is causing the problems. However, Chrome is just to handy to give up on.

The Fix

I found a fix that sounded less drastic than throwing away my entire profile. Two files have to be removed. That fixed my problem. The files are:

• Web Data
• Web Data-journal

The files can be found in:

Windows

XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\

V/7: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\

Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default

Mac Users: remember. You may have more than one Library folder. You have to find the correct one.

Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default

Rename the files or delete them. New versions will be created on the next start of Chrome. It seems to fix the problem.

Since this is such an important program for me, I’ve decided to start backing up my Chrome profile. There is about a Gigabyte of data in my User Data folder.

Caveat

In the collection of files in the User Data it may not be these two files that are corrupted. You may have to try dancing with all the files until you find the corrupted files. Many of the files in the folder are databases. One can try removing record locks and other repair programs.

Since one can’t know for certain which file is messed up, the rename and try process is better than delete and try.