Chrome Window is Completely empty

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My friend’s PC suffered an unexpected loss of power.  Usually, this doesn’t cause major problems when it’s a rare event.  This one was different.

Now when I start Chrome, it comes up with a completely blank, empty window.  No URL/Address field, no menus, nothing. Just the title bar which doesn’t say Chrome in it, three sides and a white screen.

I’ve tried reinstalling the lates version of Chrome (having grabbed it using Firefox, which seems to work, albeit slowly).  Same blank window.  Everything else seems to be aggravatingly slow, as well.  Several restarts have not changed anything.

Thoughts?

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Verify the system file integrity.

From CMD (wih full administrators privileges
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

After DISM run:
sfc /scannow

If your friend makes full disk image backups, restore the boot disk to a point in time before the power event.

If windows restore is enabled, check the latest restore point before the power event. It might work.

While rare, it’s possible some hardware component was damaged.

Consider getting a UPS. Unexpected power losses are a non-event.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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TechTango wrote:

Consider getting a UPS

Consider making regular backups to san external disk. Then it doesn’t matter what happens to the machine.

cheers, Paul

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Yeah, that doesn’t particularly help to ameliorate the current situation…

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It sounds like there may be an issue with the Chrome profile that is being used. One possible solution would be to create a new profile in Chrome and see if that resolves the problem. You can create a new profile by going to Settings > People > Manage People, then clicking “Add Person”. Another possible solution could be to check if there is any chrome extension that is causing the issue, you can check this by disabling all the chrome extensions or by starting chrome in incognito mode. If this works, you can re-enable the extensions one by one to identify which one is causing the issue.

I hope one of these solutions will resolve the issue you are experiencing with Chrome. If none of these solutions work, it may be helpful to look for additional troubleshooting steps online or to contact Chrome support for further assistance.

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That’s not an option – there is no “settings” menu to invoke!  It’s just an empty window with nothing but a blank, soled color title bat and three other walls.  The only thing present are the minimize, maximize, and red X symbols in the upper right corner.

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If loss of Chrome data is acceptable, I would try more fully uninstalling Chrome before reinstalling, as here: https://www.wintips.org/how-to-completely-uninstall-re-install-google-chrome/

Another option is create a new Windows User account name, and see if installing Chrome as that user works.  Chrome is installed per user, so another user may work fine.  If it does work, you would still have more fixing to do.

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I’ve used Revo Uninstaller Pro for years.  They maintain full uninstall logs for thousands of apps including Chrome in Windows 7.  Logs include files and registry entries.  I’ve found Revo does a great job in situations like this.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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That’s not a bad idea – next time I go up there (just went today, usually go once a week) I can log in with my administrative account and see of Chrome works there.

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Additional info. Attaching 3 photos – the empty “Chrome” window, results of the DISM command execution, and results of the SFC command.

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More info:  When I attempted to do a system Restore to an earlier date I discovered that the guy who originally built the system either never enabled system Restore (I didn’t even know it COULD be turned off!) or he deliberately turned it off for some reason.  So, that option is off the table.

He also gave the user the impression that because he set the C drive up with a mirror and configured the system so it could boot from either image, that she didn’t need to do backups.  It’s fine if a drive fails, but if something gets corrupted, it’s pretty much worthless.

Sigh…

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Ahh, was a Raid 1 drive pair.  You’re right.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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In this situation, I would manually back up the bookmarks files, uninstall Chrome and delete any left behind user data, then reinstall and restore the bookmarks files into the fresh profile. I prefer something like this to a fix of the existing install/profile, because I’d never trust that there wasn’t still something corrupted even if I got it working again.

Make sure you’ve got all your passwords to web sites, as a fresh profile certainly won’t have any saved logins.

The files should be found in:

%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

The file named Bookmarks will be the current ones, while Bookmarks.bak may contain previously deleted ones.

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