Google Chrome fails to start

Question

This is the error I get when I run google-chrome in the terminal:

[0505/065554:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)] Failed to create
/home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory. [0505/065554:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)]
Failed to create /home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory.
[3545:3545:0505/065557:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)] Failed to create
/home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory.
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(417)] readlink
failed: Permission denied
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)]
readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed:
Permission denied
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)]
readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed:
Permission denied
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(277)] Failed
to create /home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission
denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(417)]
readlink failed: Permission denied
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)]
readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed:
Permission denied
[3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:chrome_browser_main.cc(1213)] Failed to
create a ProcessSingleton for your profile directory. This means that
running multiple instances would start multiple browser processes
rather than opening a new window in the existing process. Aborting now
to avoid profile corruption.

Solution 1

Correct the ownership, assuming pipi is your username:

chown -R pipi:pipi /home/pipi

and the permissions for all folders:

find /home/pipi -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 775

775 - These are the default permissions when you create a new folder.

Solution 2

A lot of people have said that removing ~/.gtkrc-2.0 would do the trick. And sometimes permission would be the culprit. I had the same problem but neither helped! Uninstalling and installing chrome also doesn't help.

Turns out, when Chrome crashes sometimes the User Data Directory can get corrupted. So to fix it I did the following:

1. Uninstall chrome apt-get purge google-chrome-stable
2. Install chrome http://chrome.google.com
3. Remove the cache and configuration folders. rm -rf /home/<<your username>>/.config/google-chrome/ and rm -rf /home/<<your username>>/.cache/google-chrome/
4. Start Chrome and enjoy!

Comments

[A.B.]

Vote for reopen: The answer addresses a similar problem. However, it concerns other directories. Perhaps the problem is the same, but the error messages are different. This is confusing for the questioner. In addition, there is no accepted answer.

[Fabby]

Good one! +1 :p

[Timo]

So you need both write and execute permissions? Execute should be enough.