Chrome unresponsive and not useable

[historyteacher]

Hello all,

I have been fighting this issue for a few days now with no luck so I thought I would seek out some advice...

Issue:

When I open Chrome it launches, but then I get the beach ball for 10 seconds or so and then it closes and tells me that it encountered an error and gives me the "Ignore, Report, Relaunch" prompt. I cannot click anything to even attempt to get to any settings or anything.

Things I have attempted but have not worked:

1. Uninstall and Reinstall (what is weird here is I grab the latest download from the Chrome website and when it installs, I get the same exact screen as described above that still shows my account logged in. It is like it will not do a completely fresh install)

2. Used Time Machine to go back a month and replace Chrome from there.

3. Created a new user on my iMac, installed Chrome, logged in, and then disabled all of my extensions and cleared history from a month back to see if that what was hanging it up. Chrome worked on the new account created, but continued the same failure back on my real account on the iMac.

Current setup:

iMac (2012) - High Sierra 10.13.2 - Did have Chrome up to date

Any thoughts?

Thank you for all of your help and advice in advance!

 

[IHelpId10t5]

If you want to completely uninstall and then reinstall you'll need to dig into many directories and remove all of the pieces. Then, reboot, and then reinstall. Here is the best post I could find with the paths involved:

https://superuser.com/questions/318186/how-do-i-uninstall-google-chrome-completely-from-my-mac

 

[simonsi]

3. Created a new user on my iMac, installed Chrome, logged in, and then disabled all of my extensions and cleared history from a month back to see if that what was hanging it up. Chrome worked on the new account created, but continued the same failure back on my real account on the iMac.

So clear history and disable all your extensions on your real account and confirm it works, then re-enable extensions one at a time until you find the one that causes it...

 

[historyteacher]

If you want to completely uninstall and then reinstall you'll need to dig into many directories and remove all of the pieces. Then, reboot, and then reinstall. Here is the best post I could find with the paths involved:

https://superuser.com/questions/318186/how-do-i-uninstall-google-chrome-completely-from-my-mac

Thanks for this link. Do you have any experience with any of those apps that "clean?" I do not so wanted to check before I go installing a bunch of third party stuff. I am not super familiar with using terminal and command line stuff, not sure if I trust myself to not mess anything up worse than it is.
[doublepost=1513459229][/doublepost]

So clear history and disable all your extensions on your real account and confirm it works, then re-enable extensions one at a time until you find the one that causes it...

I would totally try this, but even after I disabled everything in the test account, Chrome on my real account (iMac account) still wouldn't load to a point that I could interact with it. It's like my mac is remembering the last state Chrome was in when it broke no matter how hard I try to delete/change settings/reinstall.

Appreciate you replying!

 

[IHelpId10t5]

Avoid all apps that "clean", "optimize", "monitor", or any other synonym for such things. One useful app that can help you look for things to clean up manually is EtreCheck (https://etrecheck.com/). It's a trusted stand-alone application (no installation) that simply compiles a nice summary of system information, background processes, and applications that are being launched in the background. It is very useful for looking for things like system or user launch agents that you may not know are there. It's great for finding all of the evil processes left behind by applications that should have never been installed on a Mac in the first place (e.g. cleaners, optimizers, monitors, and antivirus).

 

[sprague.rod]

The us some justifiable paranoia about apps that claim to "clean" Macs but I can absolutely recommend Clean My Mac 3 I have been using this app since it's inception and neither I nor my wife gave ever had a problem. The uninstall function will remove all traces of any app and "Reset" will just allow you to start over by erasing the contents of associated folders. Unfortunately finding the culprit for your problem will be a slow process of elimination as described by others here already.

 

[historyteacher]

If you want to completely uninstall and then reinstall you'll need to dig into many directories and remove all of the pieces. Then, reboot, and then reinstall. Here is the best post I could find with the paths involved:

https://superuser.com/questions/318186/how-do-i-uninstall-google-chrome-completely-from-my-mac

Just wanted to shoot you a quick note to let you all know that I fixed the issue! Your advice made me look further into where applications can be found on a mac. I did the hold option down while in the GO menu of finder and accessed the library. I hunted down anything related to Google I could find and deleted it. Then, when I reinstalled, it came up with a clean install with no users signed in.

Just wanted to say thanks again for your help with this!