Google chrome not opening?

Owned by Marc Miller
May 08, 2018
2 min read

Problem

You are trying to open up Google Chrome, but Google Chrome says that it is already running or that user profile has been corrupted.

Cause

This is due to Google Chrome not closing out properly (Due to a crash, Power Outage, network dropping etc...or simply forgetting to log out if you are on a mounted home directory).

Google Chrome creates 'lock' files to make sure there is only one Google Chrome application running

Solution

To fix this, you will need to do the following based on which OS you are on:

For Linux
if you simply forgot to log out, Chrome will usually ask if you wish to unlock a locked profile, if that does not work, try the following steps:

  • Open up a terminal window (Using Terminal or Terminator)
  • In your home directory, there is a .config directory, type 'cd ~/.config/google-chrome'

  • Copy the uncommented lines, lines beginning with # are comments and do not need to be copied. press enter after each line. 

    # fixes files from a crash or bookmarking after a login to encrypted websites. does not fix in depth corruption. This is for Linux Only.

# Find instances of Singleton lock and remove them.
rm -r Singleton*

#try opening Google Chrome now, if that does not open, there is likely something else wrong besides a simple lock file. 

# 9 times out of ten, moving Defaut to Default_bak, then copying back to Default will resolve permissions and bookmark corruption errors
# if problems persist, saved settings, bookmarks and passwords are too corrupted to reimport safely. 
rm -r Default_bak
mv Default Default_bak
cp -r Default_bak Default
For Mac (Managed by ECI)
  • Make sure you are closed out of Chrome (Command-Q)
  • Go to Spotlight (The magnifying glass icon in the upper right hand corner)
  • Type the following: fixchrome.command
  • Follow the commands in the window
  • Start up Chrome
For Mac (Not Managed by ECI)
  • Make sure you are closed out of Chrome (Command-Q)
  • Go to Spotlight (The magnifying glass icon in the upper right hand corner)
  • type terminal.app
  • Open up a terminal window

  • Copy the uncommented lines, lines beginning with # are comments and do not need to be copied. press enter after each line. 

    # fixes files from a crash or bookmarking after a login to encrypted websites. does not fix in depth corruption. This is for MacOS X Only.

# Find instances of Singleton lock and remove them.
find ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome -name \._Singleton* -exec rm {} \;
find ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome -name \Singleton* -exec rm {} \;
        
# copies corrupted or locked profile out of the way
rm -Rf  ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default_bak
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default_bak

# 9 times out of ten, moving Defaut to Default_bak, then copying back to Default will resolve permissions and bookmark corruption errors
# if problems persist, saved settings, bookmarks and passwords are too corrupted to reimport safely
cp -Rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default_bak ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default
cd /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS
./Google\ Chrome