How to fix “Google Chrome has stopped working”

When I tried to start the Canary version of Google Chrome today on my Windows 7 Professional system it displayed the error message "Google Chrome has stopped working" and a button to close the program.

Windows too started to become active as it was looking for a solution for the issue automatically.

The only option at this point in time was to close the program. I tried to launch the web browser twice again, the second time with administrative privileges, but it crashed both times shortly after I clicked on the browser's icon in the Windows taskbar.

Chrome worked fine just a couple of hours before the incident and it has not been updated in the meantime which could have been an explanation for it crashing.

Fixing the error

Here is what I did to fix the error. While this fix worked for me, it may not work for you as well. This is why I'm listing additional options to repair Google Chrome when you receive the stopped working error on Windows.

I went to the Chrome download page, downloaded the latest Canary version to the PC, and installed it directly without uninstallation.

The following links point to the download pages

• Chrome Stable
• Chrome Beta
• Chrome Dev
• Chrome Canary

If that does not work, try the following solutions instead

1. Uninstall the Google Chrome browser first before you run the installer. If that does not work, use a program such as Revo Uninstaller to get completely rid of Google Chrome before installing the browser again.
2. If you have issues with one particular version, try switching to another channel for the time being, or installing an older version of the browser instead of the latest one that is causing the issue.
3. If you can start Chrome for a short time, load chrome://conflicts/ in the address bar. It displays any conflicts that the browser recognized. This may point you to other programs or files that conflict with Chrome.
4. Try a different browser profile. On Windows, open %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\ in Windows Explorer and rename the Default profile to Defaultbackup after you exit the web browser.
5. Run Chrome again. The browser creates a new user profile which you can use for tests to see if it resolves the issue you are experiencing. If it does, your user profile may be corrupt or you may use a browser extension or plugin version that is causing the issues.
6. Google recommends to run the command sfc /scannow on a command prompt in Windows to make sure all Windows files are working fine.