Problems with Chrome

[Evo]

I've been trying to use Chrome and it is horribly buggy. I finally managed to get it to stop crashing a few weeks ago by doing an upgrade (it took 3 months of almost daily attempts to get the upgrade to actually take). Now I can't get it to load my designated homepage. Maybe once or twice a week it will display it. Some websites that display fine on IE and FF appear garbled on Chrome.

I don't want to re-install it because the last time I did that, it hosed up my other browsers and I had to re-install them also.

I can't find a way to contact Google directly to ask about the glitches. I've seem some developer sites, but that's not what I'm looking for. Does anyone know what is causing the problems, or how to contact Google about problems with the browser? I'm using Vista on an HP desk computer I bought a little over 2 years ago and I'm not experiencing problems with anything else.

 

[mathman]

If you are having so much trouble with Chrome, why not use IE or Firefox? You might want to try Avant (that's what I use mostly), which is a front end browser for IE with built in Firefox and Chrome.

One thing about Avant that I have found very useful is that the people who are in charge are much more responsive to problems than any of the other browsers.

 

[phinds]

patient: Doc, every time I bang my head against the wall, it HURTS!
doc: Don't bang your head against the wall.

 

[Turion]

Use Firefox.

 

[Integral]

Vista!? This may be your trouble, Chrome may not play well with that old of a OS.

I have abandoned IE in favor of Chrome this year, seem to work fine for me. This 'puter is running XP at home I run win7. All is good.

 

[Evo]

I bought the computer just before Win 7 came out and had finally deleted and reset everything so I had it working the way I wanted when they offered me a free advance upgrade to 7. I wasn't about to start the process all over again, so said no. I don't like IE9 so I don't use it, FF doesn't work for some of things I do. Everyone says use chrome, I'm trying.

Here is an example of the same web page. The first is IE, the 2nd is chrome.

 

[Evo]

All I got was a pm from a friend here saying "ahahahahahahahahahaha"

I guess this means there is no hope.

 

[Turion]

Why does FF not work for things that you want to do?

The reason why I'm hesitant to fix your chrome problem is because technophobes usually blame volunteers later down the line when anything breaks.

 

[Evo]

Why does FF not work for things that you want to do?

It made my e-mail invisible, I thought that was quiet clever. I have had issues with it where I'm forced to use another browser, so just avoid it now. Not as much of an issue now, but my company had apps and forms that were desinged to work on IE, they don't work properly on any other browser. We were forced to use IE.

The reason why I'm hesitant to fix your chrome problem is because technophobes usually blame volunteers later down the line when anything breaks.

I'm not a technophobe, I just want things to work and have little (no) patience with things that don't. While some people love to customize and change and work on problems, I don't. If I find something that works, and I like the functionality, I tend to stick with it.

The problem is that a lot of websites no longer support IE7, so I decided to go ahead and make the move to chrome. And now I'm dealing with a number of issues with it and can't find a chrome tech support page that actually allows you to contact them for a response. When you go to "contact us" all you get is a search window that spits out an FAQ. If you use the "report an issue" from tools, it is not for responses to you addressing your problem, it's just sending them an "FYI".

If you know how to fix the problem with my homepage not loading, I'd like to know. Chrome's FAQ answer was to clear cache and cookies, as if I hadn't already done that.

 

[mathman]

The problem is that a lot of websites no longer support IE7, so I decided to go ahead and make the move to chrome. And now I'm dealing with a number of issues with it and can't find a chrome tech support page that actually allows you to contact them for a response. When you go to "contact us" all you get is a search window that spits out an FAQ. If you use the "report an issue" from tools, it is not for responses to you addressing your problem, it's just sending them an "FYI".

I suggested that you look at Avant. Their tech support is far superior to that of any other browser. As I mentioned before, you can use it as either IE, Firefox, or Chrome.

 

[Evo]

I suggested that you look at Avant. Their tech support is far superior to that of any other browser. As I mentioned before, you can use it as either IE, Firefox, or Chrome.

I may give it a try.

 

[Bill Simpson]

I'm not a technophobe, I just want things to work and have little (no) patience with things that don't.

I cannot then see that working with the current and forseeable future of computers and software is going to be a consistently happy and rewarding experience.

And now I'm dealing with a number of issues with it and can't find a chrome tech support page that actually allows you to contact them for a response.

It seems that few providers of "free software" also have technical support people standing by to individually diagnose and fix problems for users.

If you know how to fix the problem with my homepage not loading, I'd like to know.

Unfortunately I don't think anyone on this forum knows where your homepage is and that seems like it would make it difficult for someone to diagnose what the problem is and perhaps even harder how to fix it.

Chrome's FAQ answer was to clear cache and cookies, as if I hadn't already done that.

That has been the generic reply to get rid of technical support tickets ever since the first buggy browser was invented. Even if it doesn't fix the problem, it at least pushes the problem off onto someone else's desk.

What if you, just as an experiment, start with a brand new bare machine without any of the things you might have installed or tweaked or changed. Just install the generic current OS and Chrome and nothing else and then don't mess with it. Does everything (at least mostly) work with Chrome and your homepage and your mail? If so then that narrows down the problem in one way. If not then it narrows down the problem in a different way. Machines are cheap. Use a clean one to help diagnose the problem. You might also go to someone else who is happily using Chrome and who doesn't seem to be seeing the problems you are seeing. See if you ask really really nicely if they will either load your homepage or possibly risk letting you touch their keyboard for you to load it. Again, whichever outcome you get will possibly help narrow down your problem. And divide-and-conquer is perhaps the best tool you have, perhaps lacking decades of expert experience in diagnosing puzzling network problems.

 

[Turion]

@Evo: Windows Vista supports IE9. Upgrade using this link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=16792

Google doesn't even provide good support for corporations so you can forget support for paying customers (or free in your case).

 

[Bill Simpson]

Decades ago Jerry Pournelle had a monthly column in Byte magazine. He would routinely describe how he had a problem with one of his computers or programs and he described how he just called up the president of IBM and told him to fly his butt and a whole division of IBM employees out to Jerry's house and fix this problem now! I don't know if that ever worked, but I think Jerry believed it did. Maybe this is worth a try, if only to describe what happened for the entertainment of the readers here. Someone later wrote a spoof of Jerry's column that raised this to a whole new level, but a couple of quick searches didn't find it.

 

[Borek]

Decades ago Jerry Pournelle had a monthly column in Byte magazine.

He did, I remember reading it.

Good old times.

 

[OmCheeto]

He did, I remember reading it.

Good old times.

Any idea which issue*?

ps. Evo, buy a Mac. My Macbook crashed a total of 3 times in 5 years. My Pro has crashed a total of zero times in the 3 months since I've bought it.

-----------------------
*I am a pack rat, and my attic space is only half full of Byte magazines.

 

[Bill Simpson]

Here is one parody of Jerry

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/95q1/jpreviews.html

but that doesn't quite seem like the one I remember.

And I have not been able to track down an archive of Jerry's columns from the 1980's.

 

[Borek]

Any idea which issue*?

No. Somewhere in the end of the eighties, or early nineties.

 

[Bill Simpson]

Any idea which issue*?

This

http://pierrekerr.ca/gallery/index.php/Other-Albums/Byte-Magazine

has grainy photographs of the cover and table of contents along with issue number. You can usually see the title of the column, "Chaos Manor" in the images and if you squint really hard sometimes make out a few of the words in the description. His column apparently appeared up to at least the last issue that this archive contains.

There are other Google hits for

"byte magazine" "table of contents"

and you might find an easier to use list of issues containing his articles

A Google search did turn up one parody of Jerry's column in rhf (rec.humor.funny) but I have this vague feeling that that might not be the one I was thinking of.

 

[Forge]

The reason why I'm hesitant to fix your chrome problem is because technophobes usually blame volunteers later down the line when anything breaks.

I concur. This has tech-support-nightmare written all over it.

Also, Avant uses IE/FF/Chrome engines so it wouldn't fix anything.