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How to Kill Zombie Chrome without Nuking from Orbit

RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
I have a laptop I use for work (64 bit Windows 7 Professional), upon which I lack any Administrator rights unfortunately, and there is no business case at present to grant me any. Chrome is installed on this laptop. This version of Chrome likes to freeze seemingly at random, sometimes after 18 hours, sometimes after 20 minutes. In Windows Task Manager, even though Chrome is shut down, its threads are still there, and after I attempt to shut them down manually, there's always one that refuses to shut down. And as long as this Zombie Chrome thread hangs around, Chrome cannot be restarted. The only solution is to reboot the laptop, which is obviously a hassle.

So the basic questions are this: Why does this version of Chrome Freeze (It never happens on my personal computer), and is there a way to kill the zombie thread without the nuclear option?

Also as a side note, my lack of administrator access precludes me from adding any extensions to Chrome. Is there a way to address this so I can have adblock?

Posts

  • ButtcleftButtcleft Registered User regular
    Its a work laptop, so I'd talk with your IT department. Trying to work around it might be frowned upon.

  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Hmm, you're probably right.

    Any thoughts on the Chrome thread that refuses to die? How to either kill it or prevent it from forming?

  • Great ScottGreat Scott King of Wishful Thinking Paragon City, RIRegistered User regular
    Anything you can do in Chrome you can also do in Firefox. You may or may not need permissions to install a browser, but if you do, you could always use a self-contained/USB stick non-installing build.

    I do agree that your first, best option is your tech support structure.

    I'm unique. Just like everyone else.
  • FoomyFoomy Registered User regular
    Hmm, you're probably right.

    Any thoughts on the Chrome thread that refuses to die? How to either kill it or prevent it from forming?

    have you tried right-clicking the process in task manage and doing a kill process tree on it?

    Steam Profile: FoomyFooms
  • EclecticGrooveEclecticGroove Registered User regular
    It's likely that Windows sent the kill command when he ended the program (or windows did) but it's not doing the job. It it's hung in that kind of state, even if he had admin rights, he likely couldn't kill it from task manager. He'd have to drop to the command prompt and use taskill with, I believe, the /f flag to do a force close.

    However, he'd need to run the command prompt as an admin to be able to use that command unless they are using some software to auto elevate it.

    As for why it happens, no idea. I have the same happen with Firefox at times, but almost always as a conflict with another piece of software on the system (gameguard in my case).

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited July 2015
    The issue with chrome here are individual processes rather than the application. Even if you close the application in task manager typically there are processes for whatever flash-based page is freezing on you still active in the background. Chrome launches a new process for every tab, and when one over-taxes your memory in this fashion that's when you start to have these problems. Sites like Pandora, web-based databases and storage like Dropbox and Google Drive, or flash based sites often are the culprits for some reason.

    Does your access allow you to see processes? Ending them at that panel will usually solve the problem and you will be able to restart the application without power cycling.

    Enc on
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