Google Chrome freezes Ubuntu

[JSF1992]

I have been experiencing frequent, random freezes when using Google Chrome in Ubuntu 12.04. The entire desktop freezes, the mouse won't move, the audio loops, and Ctrl-Alt-F1 does nothing. I've googled the problem multiple times and checked this forum, but to no avail. I really like Chrome when it's not freezing on me, so if y'all could give me some pointers on how to fix it, I'd appreciate it!

Here's my graphics controller, though I'm not confident it's a graphics problem:

lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller (rev 09)

I've been using Ubuntu less than a year, so I'm not proficient with the terminology yet.

Thanks!

[Frogs Hair]

Hello and Welcome

You may want got to the menu > history and clear your cache and browsing history from the beginning of time to eliminate that possibility.

[JSF1992]

I cleared the cache, cookies, and browsing history. It was good for a while, but it's freezing again now.

[Frogs Hair]

How is your free memory ?

free -m

[JSF1992]

Here's what I've got now:

free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7889       2252       5636          0        101        821
-/+ buffers/cache:       1328       6560
Swap:         8091          0       8091

I'm far from an expert, but I would think RAM's probably not the issue, if I'm only using 1/3 of it. Of course, Ubuntu isn't frozen at the moment either. Is there any chance I can get a real time readout of my RAM usage so I can see what it looks like next time it crashes?

[monkeybrain2012]

Did you install any Chrome addon? If you do try disabling them and see if the problem persists.

[craig10x]

I have the latest Chrome stable....it doesn't freeze on my system but it occasionally seems to hang when it comes to a web page loading in and i never had that problem before with all the various updated versions i have gotten from them, so perhaps this particular version is problematic...

For a possible experiment, perhaps you should try Google Chrome Beta which is in the next version past stable...and see how that does for you, so at least you know if the next version will clear things up...
If you prefer, download and run it in a live iso session to test it there....(if you do it on live...don't forget to also install ubuntu restricted extras for a proper test with flash and all...)

[wyth]

Aha -- I'm not alone in this. For some time I've had the exact same problem, and Chromium was actually worse; it would freeze up the system within minutes of opening it, instead of the hour or two with Chrome. (On an Intel GM965 gfx card.)

I upgraded from 12.04 to 13.04 with the same results. I then re-installed the system, and that seemed to fixed the hard freezes, but it still slows to an unbearable crawl for extended periods of time. Eventually I might get a warning that a tab is non-responsive, but that can take anywhere from 20 minutes to well over 1 or 2 hours. I have been able to get to a terminal, though, since re-installing the system. (What I mean by that is I just used the live USB and re-installed the system files; it wasn't a clean install proper.)

The latest move was to get rid of all the files in ~/.config/google-chrome, which made it still less likely to completely lock up, but it still does. I may try going to the beta version again, but I experienced the same issues there before.

It seems like there's an issue with Chrome gracefully crashing a tab rather than everything. This is strange, because one of the features of Chrome was a runaway tab was supposed to go down on its own without taking down the rest of the browser, let alone the machine (although I'd take the browser crashing over locking up the entire system). I'd love to get to the bottom of this, because there are a few features on Chrome that I find I really miss when I go back to Firefox (and this never happens with Firefox). Plus, when it works, Chrome feels a half-step snappier than Firefox.

But I'm not sure I could file a bug at this point because I don't know where to look for issues (nothing in the logs) or where the problem really exists. The only thing I know for certain is it almost never happens on my desktop machine with the nvidia GeForce 8600GT-DDR3 card, so maybe it's something with the Intel onboard gfx. For now I'm having to break myself of the Chrome habit because it's making browsing nearly impossible.

[thaper]

I have the latest ubuntu with chrome on 3 different machines all with different hardware - i hangs on all of them

[ronliu2k]

I had the exact chrome display crush issue for the last 3 months, and finally I fixed ti totally by install gnome desktop. I guess probably some unity stuff conflict with chrome.