Chrome Continue After Closing

| 15-09-2021
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  1. Chrome Continue After Closing Screen
  2. Chrome Continue After Closing Windows

Depending on the extensions you have installed, sometimes Google Chrome will continue to run in the background on your computer after closing it. You might notice this, especially after setting up. Check the task manager's processes tab and see if it's actually still running. If so, have task manager kill the task, then try to restart the program. If you uninstalled/reinstalled chrome.

Closing

A frustrating issue that I have encountered on multiple recent customers’ PCs is an inability to completely close all Google Chrome processes–and, even more frustratingly, a consequent inability to reopen Chrome once it has been closed on the machine. This happens regardless of whether the Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed checkbox is checked in Settings.

Chrome Continue where you left off after restarting or closing Chrome You can tell Chrome to re-open the same pages you were looking at when you quit. Chrome Continue where you left off after restarting or closing Chrome You can tell Chrome to re-open the same pages you were looking at when you quit.

Two workarounds exist: either reboot the machine or open Task Manager and kill the hanging chrome.exe process that is responsible for this problem. But, of course, this is no long-term solution.

Fortunately I have found the long-term solution! Keep in mind it may be different in your case depending on the cause, but it appears that this problem is always a product of one of two conditions:

  1. A problematic plugin/extension, or
  2. Corrupt User Data of some sort.

For sake of justification, in the case of my customers’ machines, the first one was caused by a problematic QuickTime plugin (disabling it fixed the problem), and the second one was a corrupt Cookies store–one which could not be cleared using the Clear Browsing Data dialog.

In light of this, there is a relatively easy way to solve either. Here is the process by which I propose you approach the solution in your particular case:

  1. First, open Chrome and navigate to chrome:plugins. Disable all plugins and restart the browser. You may have to kill chrome.exe manually once and then reopen/reclose the browser to test this. If the behavior persists, reenable the plugins one-by-one to narrow down the one which is responsible.
  2. If this doesn’t work, reenable all plugins, then navigate next to chrome:extensions and disable all extensions next. Repeat the close/open process to see if the behavior persists.

If this still doesn’t work, now that you’ve ruled out any plugin/extension issues, you’ll need to employ this final phase of the fix, which involves locating corrupt User Data and fixing it.

METHOD 1: From The Ground Up

The first approach involves recreating a new User Data store for your Chrome profile. This is the most surefire way of correcting the issue as it involves working from the ground up with a new profile and reintroducing customizations (such as Bookmarks, Preferences, etc.) until you find one which is a problem (in my case, it was Cookies). Here’s how it works:

  1. Open up a folder browser window (a Windows Explorer window) on your PC and navigate to the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChrome
  2. Inside this folder, you will find a subfolder called User Data. Make sure Chrome is closed (including the hanging chrome.exe process), then rename this folder to something such as User Data.old
  3. Open Chrome again and close it. Voila, no problems.
  4. Note that a new User Data folder has now been created which is blank. Here’s the tricky part. The new profile doesn’t have any of your previous data in it (as you probably noticed). If you’re simply using a roaming Google Chrome profile (such as one where you sign in while opening the browser) to retain your settings, it’s as easy as signing in again to repopulate your stuff. But if you aren’t, you’ll need to manually copy over the data from the corrupt profile. To do so:
    1. Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChromeUser Data.oldDefault to get to the old corrupt profile data that you are no longer using.
    2. Open another folder browser window and navigate to the new profile data here: %LOCALAPPDATA%GoogleChromeUser DataDefault
    3. Close Chrome (if it isn’t already) and copy over the following user data files within this folder one at a time, opening and closing Chrome in-between each time to check for a hanging chrome.exe process after the file is copied:
      1. Archived History
      2. Bookmarks
      3. Extension Cookies
      4. Favicons
      5. History
      6. Login Data
      7. Preferences
      8. Shortcuts
      9. Top Sites
      10. Visited Links
    4. If you copy a file and the behavior reappears, that’s obviously your culprit. In my case, it was Cookies, which you’ll notice I didn’t even list above because I bet that’s what your problem is too!

Chrome Continue After Closing Screen

METHOD 2: From The Top Down

You can reverse this method if you want to try and retain as much as possible of your profile (i.e., if you have a ton of extensions installed that you don’t want to redownload–though to restore those you can technically also simply copy the subfolders within the Default folder as well that relate to them). First I would create a backup of the User Data folder before beginning just in case, and afterwards I’d begin renaming suspect files one by one until you find the culprit. Start with Cookies and go through the rest of the files in the Default folder until you find the problem.

Thank goodness this is solved! It’s an annoying one.

Donate to say 'Thanks' if this post has helped save you time and money! 🙂

By default, when you close Google Chrome, the browser window closes, but the application itself continues to run in the background. There are a few reasons for this.

First and foremost, this makes it faster to open a new browser window. Since Chrome is already running in the background, there is less that has to take place behind the scenes before your new browser window appears. This makes the browser feel quick, even on slower machines.

Running in the background also allows any Chrome extensions you might have installed to continue to operate. These are applications that run within Chrome and either enhance the browser’s existing features, or add new ones. Extensions range from those that change Chrome’s background colors to those that add support for third party applications.

Chrome Continue After Closing Windows

This behavior, however, might not always be desirable.

If you are running an older or less powerful computer, you might find that forcing Google Chrome to stop running in the background could noticeably improve the overall performance of your computer.

Similarly, if you are using a laptop, having Google Chrome running in the background could negatively impact your battery life. By forcing Chrome to close completely, you might find you can stretch your battery life just a little further.

If you fall into one of these two categories, or would simply prefer to avoid having Chrome run in the background, you can follow the instructions below to disable this behavior.

In Google Chrome:

1. Select “Settings” in the Chrome Menu

2. Click on “Advanced” at the bottom of the settings page that appears.

3. Under the “System” heading, find the box next to “Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed.”

By default, the toggle button next to that text will be set to the right with a blue background. To prevent Chrome from running in the background, simply click the button so that the toggle is to the left, with a gray background (see screenshot above).

If, in the future, you decide you would like to allow Chrome to run in the background once again, simply repeat the steps above and move the toggle back to the left.