Only first tab in chrome works

A collegue has encountered a problem with Chrome that I've never seen before and, after trying to search for it, neither has anybody else. I hope somebody here will recognize it.

When starting Chrome browser (version 33), the first tab works fine; it shows the thumbnails and you can type a URL and it'll happily go there or show search results.

On any consecutive tab; Chrome does not show the thumbnails, nor can you navigate to any URL. Whatever I try, it just shows the spinner (counter clock-wise) forever. This also happens when I try to access internal pages like the extensions or about page (they both work fine on the first tab).

There were only two extensions installed; a Google Docs extension and a McAfee extension (try as I might, collegues continue to believe "well-known brand" != "crapware"). Other browsers and applications do not seem to be affected by whatever the cause is.

Does anybody know what the problem might be and how to fix it?

4 Answers

Have you tried to reset your chrome browser? It might fix everything for you Try it once:

1. Click/tap on the Chrome menu
2. Click/tap on Settings.
3. Click/tap on Show advanced settings.
4. Scroll down to the Reset browser settings section, and click/tap on the Reset browser settings button.
5. When prompted, click/tap on Reset to approve.

See if it works for you.

Here's Google's documentation over Chrome's Reset browser feature.

I'm not sure what's causing the problem, but it could have something to do with a faulty user profile.

The default user profile is not changed when you update the web browser.
You can find it in the following location (on Windows 7 or later)

%appdata%\..\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\

Close Google Chrome and browse to that location using Windows Explorer or by entering the path into the "Run" command and make a copy of the Default folder and store it somewhere safe, then delete the Default folder from that location and try restarting Google Chrome.

EDIT: If that doesn't work, consider downloading the portable version of Google Chrome

Please try to stop all extension using chrome://extensions/ then confirm whether it works or not. Please put this url chrome://newtab in the corrupt tab and confirm how it will be. Please use extension New tab to reset tab or set favourite tab after close all extensions. It might be fixed in some cases.

Google extension - new tab

After it's fixed just turned off the extension on chrome://extensions/

Maybe you can confirm with other user account of OS or safe boot mode.

I had the same issue and just had to disable Closed Captions via Chrome audio control.