Chromium (and Google Chrome) comes with a set of built-in diagnostic tests thatany user can run. These tests can help determine the root cause of the followingproblems.
- Chrome fails to start
- Chrome crashes quickly after started
- Chrome starts but any tab created crashes or fails to load
- Chrome is extremely slow
Work in Progress : Diagnostic mode is currently only available in thetip-of-tree version of Chromium for Windows and in the developer channel versionof Google Chrome for Windows. Furthermore, only a small set of diagnostic testscurrently run (more are planned in the future).
Diagnostic mode is an environment that runs a set of tests before the browserstarts. These tests vary in sophistication, from trivial checks that criticalfiles exist, to more complex (and time consuming) tests that test the integrityof the key databases. Each test can pass, fail or simply be skipped if the testis not applicable. The output should be used as as a starting point for further,more specific, investigation and troubleshooting.
Privacy
Diagnostic mode does not automatically send any information to Google. It is upto the user to copy the text output from running diagnostic mode that theyconsider appropriate and helpful for others to see. Furthermore, care has beentaken to expose little to no personal information in the diagnostic output sothat users can feel comfortable sharing it with internet help groups.
How to run (windows only)
- Make sure no instances of chrome.exe are running. Check in theWindows Task Manager for any zombie chrome.exe processes and endthem if necessary.
- Open a command line session (cmd.exe)
- Change directory (cd) to the directory of chrome.exe, for example,inVista, regular chrome install is in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application
- Type chrome.exe --diagnostics [enter]
A second console window will open and the tests will run automatically, and youshould see something like this:
This shows a run where all tests passed. If a test fails it will be marked witha [FAIL] entry.