Chrome failing to work?

[Flint_Hammer]

So I built a new PC about a month ago, no problems, installed Chrome and it worked fine for that whole time, other than the terrible Windows 8 mode. I boot up Chrome this morning, and it's no go. It times-out of all connection attempts, which I can't figure out, because my connection is fine. I'm writing this from the same computer with a different browser. I can access all the settings and etc., but no connection. I haven't installed any plugins or apps, it's the vanilla, bare bones Chrome. I scanned for malware, no problems, which made complete sense, because it's a new PC with virtually nothing on it, and everything it does have came from a known publisher like Valve, Microsoft, or Apple. I tried uninstalling and re-installing, no help. In fact, it seemed to stall on the uninstall, which was what originally made me think malware, but no dice there.

Any thoughts? I'm at a bit of a loss. Literally the only thing I can think of that changed is I overclocked my memory - but the sticks are rated for 1866, the mobo supports 2000, and I had no problems when I overclocked running any of my other apps. I even tried setting it back to the mobo's standard ratings for 1333, no change in Chrome performance.

Thanks for any help!

 

[SchizTech]

If you boot into safe mode with networking, does Chrome work there?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-safe-mode

 

[Flint_Hammer]

If you boot into safe mode with networking, does Chrome work there?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-safe-mode

Thank you, good idea. So good it got it to work, at least in safe mode. Next question: why? It occurred to me, as I logged in to Chrome now from Safe Mode, that I also recently installed Google Drive, as in, right when this problem started. Windows indicated when I booted up Chrome that the Drive extension might cause problems. Is that reasonable? Is Drive known to cause compatibility/latency issues with Chrome? It seems odd, but it's one of the only other things I can think of.

 

[SchizTech]

It seems odd that a google product would interfere with their flagship browser (but stranger things have happened). Can you disable that add-on in Chrome in normal mode and test it there?

 

[SchizTech]

I wasn't able to find discussion of clear compatibility issues in a quick google search

 

[Flint_Hammer]

I wasn't able to find discussion of clear compatibility issues in a quick google search

Nope, it's something else. I uninstalled Drive in Normal Mode, booted up Chrome, same thing, timed out. Yeah, it didn't make sense that Chrome would struggle with Drive, I assume Google would make their stuff internally consistent.

Here's the extent of the help I get from Chrome's error message. Is there a diagnostic to see what exactly is failing with Chrome, or what Chrome is ignoring in Safe Mode that makes it work? Here's a link to what I see when Chrome fails. I also thought it might be because I'm using Windows 8.1 and Chrome only wanted to be used in Windows 8 mode. Nope.

 

[SchizTech]

It's my understanding that the core browser is the same in normal desktop or "windows 8" mode. It does seem that Chrome was just updated though.

http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/stable-channel-update_26.html

One new change that caught my eye that certain "NPAPI" plugins were disabled by default in the new Chrome update. DO you have any plugins installed?

 

[Flint_Hammer]

It's my understanding that the core browser is the same in normal desktop or "windows 8" mode. It does seem that Chrome was just updated though.

http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/stable-channel-update_26.html

One new change that caught my eye that certain "NPAPI" plugins were disabled by default in the new Chrome update. DO you have any plugins installed?

I do, but none are NPAPI to my knowledge (which is limited). None of the 6 it has are disabled when I check the plugins. They're as ho-hum name-brand as they come, e.g. one from Adobe, one for Office, Chrome's PDF viewer, etc.

 

[SchizTech]

Might be worth a try to disable the plugins one by one anyway.

 

[SchizTech]

Also reset Chrome to default settings (should be a reset button under advanced settings). Even though you re-installed it the new install may have picked up settings of the previous install which were not removed from the system. A lot of uninstallers leave a lot behind.

 

[Flint_Hammer]

Might be worth a try to disable the plugins one by one anyway.

Well, I went through and disabled each plugin individually. No improvement. So it isn't Drive, it isn't Plugins, it works in Safe Mode, and I don't know why. What kind of diagnostic can I use in Safe Mode?

 

[SchizTech]

Might be worth a try to disable the plugins one by one anyway.

Well, I went through and disabled each plugin individually. No improvement. So it isn't Drive, it isn't Plugins, it works in Safe Mode, and I don't know why. What kind of diagnostic can I use in Safe Mode?

I'm not sure about a specific diagnostic as such. I do find the timing with the recent update suspicious. Chrome does it's updates automatically and silently. Perhaps a clean install of Chrome is in order if the reset function doesn't help it.