Why is my Google Chrome unresponsive?
There are various reasons why this error tends to affect the Chrome browser. This is why there is no specific solution to it too. The most common one is due to opening heavy websites on a slow network connection.
The Page Unresponsive Error Appears
A Page(s) Unresponsive or Page Unresponsive window will pop up on your screen while you’re using Chrome to show you what’s happening.
- The following page(s) has become unresponsive. You can wait for it (them) to become responsive or kill them.
There are two buttons in the prompt window: the “Kill pages” (Kill), and the “Wait” button.
- If you tap on the “Kill pages”, it will refresh the page. Then, you should follow up by reloading the particular web pages.
You can also tap on the Refresh icon or press the F5 key to reload the page.
The “Kill pages” option is recommended by the Chrome browser, as the unsaved work would not be lost. The page will be refreshed and reloaded again automatically. Refresh the page(s) if you see the “Aw, Snap!” or “He’s Dead, Jim!” error message after clicking the button, then sign in again.
- Tapping on the “Wait” option prompts the browser to persist in attempting to load the current page(s). This option, however, always yields little to no changes. The same error tends to come up again very soon.
Closing the window manually by clicking the X button in the upper right corner of the prompt window will result in losing your unsaved work.
Turn off Sandbox mode
- Go to the Google Chrome shortcut on the start menu or the Desktop.
- Right-click on it, scroll down to the “Properties” option and tap on it.
- Scroll down to the “Target” field and add -no-sandbox to the end of the line
{“C:\Program Files(x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” -no-sandbox}
- Next, tap on the Apply button, then the Ok button.
- Lastly, restart the Chrome browser.
If this doesn’t fix the issue, head to the next solution.
Update the Google Chrome browser
Follow the steps below to update the browser:
- Launch the Google Chrome browser.
- Tap on the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the browser.
- Scroll down to the “Help” option tap on it to expand the menu
- Tap on the “About Google Chrome” option, and you will be redirected to the next page that displays the information about the browser.
- If there are updates available, click on the “update” button that will be displayed just below the chrome icon.
If the browser is up-to-date, you will not see the update button, and this will now make us consider the other solutions options.
- Launch the Chrome browser
- Click on the three Hamburger dots in the top right corner of the browser
- Scroll down to Settings and tap on it
- On the left menu of the screen, tap on “Privacy and security”
- Tap on “cookies and other site data” option.
- Choose the “Block third-party cookies” option.
Some websites utilize third-party cookies, and disabling them is not always recommended.
Clear Browsing Data
Browsing data often causes many browser issues, and clearing them always solves a lot of problems, including the Google Chrome page being unresponsive.
- Click on the three dots in the top right corner of the Chrome browser.
- Scroll down to the Settings option from the drop-down menu.
- Choose Privacy and security from the left sidebar.
- Tap on the Clear browsing data option.
- Click on the Advanced tab in the pop-up window.
- Then, set the time range.
- Check the “Cookies and other site data” and the “Cached images and files” options.
- Tap on the Clear data button and the data will be cleared in the background.
Check your extensions
The chrome extensions play an important role, by extending the functionality that limits the core browser itself. This, however, has a negative impact as it uses more resources, thus lowering the performance of the browser.
The best way is to disable an extension at a time, or disable all of them, and enable them one at a time while checking which one is the cause of the errors at hand.
To disable the extensions, follow the instructions below:
- Launch the Chrome browser
- Click on the three dots at the far right corner at the top of the browser.
- Scroll down to the “More Tools” option.
- Click on the “Extensions” option to open the installed extensions window.
- Toggle the extensions one by one, while checking, or disable all of them then re-enable them one by one, while checking the culprit.
- You can even choose to disable those that you don’t use regularly.
Disabling the extensions reduces the amount of memory consumed by the Chrome browser.
Disable hardware acceleration
The Hardware acceleration feature is used to share the webpage functions between the GPU and the CPU to lessen the task and increase performance. However, at other times, there might occur some malfunctions, and we have to disable the feature.
To do so, follow the instructions below:
- Launch the Chrome browser.
- Tap on the three dots in the top right corner.
- Scroll down to the settings and click on it to open the settings window.
- Scroll down to the “system” option and tap on it to expand the category.
- Toggle the button to disable the hardware acceleration.
- Next, hit on the “Relaunch” button that pops up next to the toggle slide. This will restart the Chrome browser. Go back to the webpage to see the difference.
Use Chrome Task Manager
Google Chrome starts many services in the background when it is launched. Too many services running may lead to unexpected CPU usage and result in unresponsive webpages errors.
To check the CPU usage with Chrome services and end then, follow the steps below.
- Launch the Chrome browser.
- Click on the Shift + Esc keys to open the Chrome Task Manager.
- Confirm the memory consumption and CPU usage for different Chrome processes.
- Click on Chrome service with high CPU usage and end the service.
Now, re-load the webpage(s) again.
Use a High-Performance profile
On Windows PC
- Press the start menu and search for “power settings”
- Click on the “power options” on the menu
- Tap on the “additional power settings” under “Related settings”
- If the “Balanced(recommended)” option is enabled, tap on the “High performance” option below it.
Delete or rename the Default folder
A corrupt Chrome user profile can also cause the error at hand. Creating a new one by renaming your current profile using File Explorer or Finder.
Sync your browsing data to a Google Account before you start the process.
Follow the steps below to do so:
- Exit the Google Chrome browser and all related activities.
- Press Windows+R to open the Run box on the PC. (On a Mac, open Finder and select Go > Go to Folder.).
- Copy and paste the relevant folder path below and press “Enter”:
On a PC —> %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\
On a Mac —> ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ - Rename the folder labeled Default to any label you want.
- Now, reload the Google Chrome browser. The browser will then go on and automatically generate a new profile.
- Sign in with your Google Account to start using it.
Create a New Profile to Fix It
- Launch the Chrome browser
- Tap on the three dots in the right corner of the browser
- Scroll down and tap on the settings option
- On the settings page, tap on the “You and Google” option.
- What you need to do is remove this profile from the browser.
- To remove the profile, first “Turn Off Sync”.
- Next is to remove the account by clicking on the “Remove an account” option.
- Now you can log in with another account or create a new profile from there.
Once you finish logging in or creating a new profile, the browser will now start syncing the profile.
This process will restart the settings of Google Chrome to default while deleting bookmarks, extensions, and more potentially problematic components.
Close Video Playback on the Webpages.
Some websites, like news websites, will activate the auto-video when visiting their webpage. This in turn will consume more resources in Chrome to load those particular web pages and might result in unresponsive web page errors in the Chrome browser.
In such instances, it is recommended to disable auto-video playback when you visit such web pages.
Consider using Beta or Canary versions.
These are two versions of the Chrome browser that are still under development. The beta version is considered the last step before rolling out the stable final version, whereas, the canary version is still in the experimental stage.
These versions, however, are able to perform to the required standard with little to no fluxes. The beta version is more stable than the canary, and maybe that would be a better alternative among the two.
Reinstall Chrome
- Launch the control panel from the start menu
- Navigate to “Programs” and tap on the “programs and features” option.
- Scroll down to “Google Chrome”
- Double-click on the program and an “uninstall” pop-up window will be displayed.
- Tap on the uninstallation button, and let the PC run the uninstallation process.
- Now, restart the computer to allow the change to take effect.
Next, visit the Google Chrome download page.
- Choose the version compatible with the device you are running.
After the download is finished, follow the installation instructions to reinstall the browser.
Switch to a 32-bit version of Chrome
On some occasions, Chrome users have been able to utilize the 32-bit version, and have a smooth experience whenever they encounter some issues with the 64-bit version. The downside of the 32-bit version, however, is that it may not offer the same performance as the 64-bit version.
Conclusion
The “page unresponsive” error usually occurs when the webpage takes too long to load. Exiting the particular webpage and refreshing it gets rid of the issue, but it becomes annoying if it keeps happening every time.
That said, however, Chrome browser is prone to errors, but they are never damaging errors, and some such as this “unresponsive error” are easily rectified. The solutions above have been tested and have worked in solving the error. Go through each until you find the one that proves helpful to your issue.