How to solve "Your profile could not be opened correctly" issue in Chrome or Chromium without losing your profile

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How to solve "Your profile could not be opened correctly" issue in Chrome or Chromium without losing your profile

May 10, 2010 by Saravanan Thirumuruganathan

I use Google Chrome as my default browser. So when I started getting errors saying "Your profile could not be opened correctly" , it was quite annoying. I tried lot of fixes on my own and nothing seemed to work. I checked the forums and most of the solutions were to basically create a new profile which was not acceptable to me.

I had quite a bit of idle time today and hence decided to find the root cause. One of the main reasons for my anxiety was the nagging doubt that this might be due to my recent Chrome Extension – Chrome Nanny (for more details see Chrome Nanny – A Leech Block like Extension for Chrome ). It turned out that my extension was innocent but in the process , I found the root cause !

The cause of this issue seems straightforward – Some file or database is corrupted. I tried opening all SQLite databases and they all worked correctly. Most of the other files (esp which had JSON data) too seemed fine to me. The remaining was some data files and I had no way to find how to verify their integrity.

I was able to finally solve the issue. I had few solutions which should work. I had listed all of them – so use the one which works for you.

Method 1 : Check if there is any zombie processes

This is probably the most common scenario. If you get an error “Your profile could not be opened” , close all Chrome windows. Now check using ps if there is any chrome process still alive. A simple ps –aux | grep –i chrome or ps –aux | grep –i chromium should do. If there is any processes still alive kill them (use kill, pkill or killall). Make sure all chrome processes are dead and start Chrome again. If the error does not come again, great ! Else follow the other steps.

If you are in Windows, then use the task explorer to kill all chrome processes.

Method 2 : Removing Web Data file

Try this method first as this was the issue in my system. Google Chrome has a file called "Web Data" which stores lot of info in it – including your passwords (wink wink). In my case this file was corrupted. I deleted this file and all worked well.

If you are in Linux , you can find the "Web Data" file at ~/.config/google-chrome/Default (if you are using Chrome) or at ~/.config/chromium/Default (if you are using Chromium). If you are in Windows (atleast in Windows 7), the file is at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\ . Delete the file and restart Chrome. Hopefully everything should work well. Of course, you will lose all your stored passwords and the search engines.

Method 3 : Check if any of the SQLite databases is locked

Chrome uses SQLite to store lot of information. Some times, the database might be locked and Chrome might not be able to access it. In this case, follow Kyron’s script in this Chrome forum.

Basically what he does is this : he dumps the SQLite database data into an SQL file, deletes the database , recreates it using the SQL file. This script should work if you are in Linux. (I think it should work for Mac too). His script is written for Chromium. If you are using Google Chrome, change the folder ~/.config/chromium/Default/ to ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/ .

Method 4 : Creating a new profile with most of the data from old profile

This method is very similar to the previous methods where instead of removing "Web Data", it tries to create a new profile with most of the useful data from old profile copied in to it. The steps are :

    a) Rename the Default folder at ~/.config/google-chrome/Default or ~/.config/chromium/Default to say backup. For Windows, the folder is at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\
    b) create a new folder with name "Default"
    c) copy the files/folders given below from original Default folder (currently named as backup) to the new Default folder one by one . After each step, try opening Chrome to see if the error comes. If an error comes, then the latest object you copied caused the issue.

    Preferences file
    Bookmarks file
    Extensions folder (contains all your extension’s source code)
    Local Storage folder : copy only files beginning with "chrome-extension_" (other files are most likely not needed )
    History* (all your history )

Again note that you will get a profile that is very close to the previous profile but it will not have the old stored passwords or the custom search engines you had.

Hope this post helped to solve a nagging issue !

[Update 12 May 2010] : Added more scenarios.

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Posted in Google Chrome, Techie | Tagged chrome, google, profile, web data | 74 Comments

74 Responses

on May 16, 2010 at 1:22 pm | Reply shan

thanx man 2 worked for me thanx for your hard work there shan
- on May 16, 2010 at 2:14 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Thanks Shan !
on May 16, 2010 at 1:35 pm | Reply shantiq

linked you on ubuntuforums.org hope you do not mind

shan

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1485136
on May 29, 2010 at 3:13 pm | Reply yo2boy_

Hope this works…
on May 29, 2010 at 3:16 pm | Reply yo2boy_

YAY. THIS WORKED!!!!!

THIS IS SO COOL.

THX MAN.
- on May 29, 2010 at 8:05 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @yo2boy_ , glad that it worked for you !
  
  No, I do not use Twitter. If the intent was following the blog, you can subscribe using either the reader or email Thanks for the comments !
on May 29, 2010 at 3:21 pm | Reply yo2boy_

Hey do you have a Twitter?
on May 31, 2010 at 4:16 pm | Reply anonym

Method 1 worked fine on ubuntu, thanks!
- on May 31, 2010 at 9:00 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @anonym,
  
  Glad that it worked for you !
on June 1, 2010 at 9:02 pm | Reply Leo

Somehow my history was corrupted. Strange. Thanks for the tip.
- on June 1, 2010 at 9:07 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @Leo,
  
  Glad that this worked for you. I now have a cron script which backs up Chrome’s Default profile folder every night. This kinda allows me to move on with least inconvenience.
on June 20, 2010 at 12:59 pm | Reply Desmond

method 2 works in my WInXP …
been stucked with this stupid Profile crap for months …
thanks for the tip mate … cheers .. bless you
- on June 20, 2010 at 7:25 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @Desmond, glad that it works in WinXP. Hopefully, Google adds a self correcting feature in Chrome.
on June 29, 2010 at 4:06 pm | Reply Mallesh

Thanks for the post Saravanan…. Method 1 works for me.
- on June 29, 2010 at 6:06 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Hello Mallesh, glad that it works for you !
on July 3, 2010 at 12:48 pm | Reply Pete

A+++ – had the ‘You profile could not be opened correctly’ on the latest build on Win 7 64. Never thought to check the running processes – so just killed all chrome and everything ok. And here I was getting ready to mess around with the profiles themselves.
- on July 3, 2010 at 5:56 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Hello Pete,
  
  I learnt it the hard way after messing up my profile once ! The simplest solutions works a lot of time !
on July 4, 2010 at 11:06 pm | Reply ari

2nd tip work for me in Ubuntu Lucid.

Thanks.
- on July 5, 2010 at 11:42 am | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Hello Ari,
  
  Glad that it worked. It is interesting to note that the most common root cause for Windows and Linux seems to be different ! Probably , I should rewrite the article to emphasize the point .
on July 13, 2010 at 9:06 am | Reply Your profile could not be opened correctly. | unodeitanti.com

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on August 4, 2010 at 12:50 pm | Reply ari tafari

Option #2 worked like a charm.
Thanks so much.
- on August 4, 2010 at 7:48 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @Ari, glad that it worked out for you !
on August 9, 2010 at 7:28 am | Reply How to solve “Your profile could not be opened correctly” issue in Chrome or Chromium « codification

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on September 6, 2010 at 1:40 pm | Reply Tiberiu

Yep, method 2 works but its also painful.
I did exactly what you said and after a few days the problem returned. This is frustrating.
Anyway, thanks for taking your time for writing this.
on September 22, 2010 at 1:59 pm | Reply suresh

Hi
Method 1 worked for me. thanks
suresh
- on September 23, 2010 at 3:23 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Hello Suresh,
  
  Glad that it worked – it is quite surprising that this issue is not yet fixed from Google !
on October 10, 2010 at 6:45 pm | Reply mauro

method 2 did the trick.
thanks!
on October 17, 2010 at 3:58 pm | Reply baher

Thanks a lot. Method 2 worked for me perfectly on Ubuntu.
on October 21, 2010 at 2:44 pm | Reply cousteau

I just figured out the ~/.config/chromium/Default/Web Data thing by using “the bisection method” (move half of the files, check if it works, restore them, move half of the files on the half that did work, etc…). Had I read this blog before and I might have fixed it earlier.
Why this file got corrupted is something I don’t know for sure, but probably has to do with the netbook suddenly shutting down (don’t know why, it didn’t keep up for more than a minute or so… but got fixed after a fsck).
- on October 22, 2010 at 1:32 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Cousteau,
  
  In fact the first time I followed exactly the bisection method to find the issue. It is a very handy idea.
  
  It is really a pity that Chrome has not yet fixed it programmatically !
on October 25, 2010 at 11:31 am | Reply Nathan

Number 4 worked for me, although Windows wouldn’t let me rename the Default folder. I created a Backup folder within the Default folder, moved everything to that, and then file by file moved them back to default.
on October 25, 2010 at 11:31 am | Reply Nathan

By the way…THANK YOU!
on October 26, 2010 at 12:03 pm | Reply hugo sama

thank you, number 2 worked for me
- on October 27, 2010 at 10:58 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @hugo , glad it worked for you!
on October 27, 2010 at 8:32 pm | Reply Allen K.

“A simple ps –aux | grep –i chrome or ps –aux | grep –i chromium should do. ”

->

“A simple ps –aux | grep –i chrom should do.”
- on October 27, 2010 at 10:58 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  That is true !
on December 9, 2010 at 9:05 pm | Reply Chris

Thanks man! This was driving me crazy!!! You were right on the money.
on December 15, 2010 at 11:32 am | Reply Mike Santoro

Thanks so much. Method 1 worked for me. I can’t believe I’ve spent 5 days trying to figure this out when it was so easy. Thanks!
on January 8, 2011 at 1:11 pm | Reply Karim

Deleting the Web Data file worked just fine for me, and no bookmarks or extensions are lost!
I never imagined that one message box could be so annoying,
really thanks man!
on January 26, 2011 at 6:08 am | Reply richiee

Method 4 worked for me, history file appeared to be corrupted.
I use Privacy Eraser now and then to clean out a lot of junk, it appears to be this that is causing the problem for me.
I have just stopped cleaning Chrome when running this program.
Many thanks
- on December 29, 2011 at 8:38 am | Reply John S
  
  I had the same problem. I just deleted the “History” file.
on February 7, 2011 at 5:46 am | Reply Ayeshah

Thanks so much! You sorted out my problem from Step 1!!! And it only took a couple of seconds. Thanks again.
on March 1, 2011 at 4:49 pm | Reply Thor

THANK YOU!!!
on March 27, 2011 at 7:10 am | Reply SUPER XC

Thanks, method 2 works!
on April 17, 2011 at 7:10 am | Reply ZIzou

Thanks Man, 1st Method fixed it
on May 28, 2011 at 6:09 pm | Reply Oscar

#2 and #4 worked for me…Thanks for the tips..
..
This tip worked for me. first- To be able to find this folder you have to enable “show hidden files” from the preferences menu in the file browsing edit menu. Renamed default to backup, removed webdata folder. tested by opening and it worked. At this point, moved rest of folders from backup to new default and was able to get my data restored.

Thanks for tips.
on June 21, 2011 at 9:02 am | Reply Tushar

Method 1 worked! Thanks a lot!
on July 23, 2011 at 11:49 am | Reply Mind me

Your methods are advanced for me. Could you tell me where to go to do these things? For example, finding the folders you refer to and the like.

Thanks
- on July 25, 2011 at 6:32 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  @Mind Me, can you give me any other details about your system – Which OS are you having? I can provide more specific details then !
on August 3, 2011 at 7:29 pm | Reply Mitch`

I have at least 5 Chrome.exe zombie processes running, but when i end the process, they continue to run, I cannot shut them down. Any advice?
Thanks!
- on August 3, 2011 at 7:31 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Mitch, if you are in Linux , kill -9 should do the trick.If in windows, can you also try kill process tree option? Of course there is always the option of logging out and in
  - on August 3, 2011 at 7:57 pm Mitch`
    
    Ya, I’m on Windows (sorry for not putting that up). I also tried the process tree and it didnt work as well, I restarted my comp and its still creating zombie processes, but at least i can shut them down and the problem seems to be fixed.
    Thanks!
on August 4, 2011 at 3:46 pm | Reply Nic Vine

Chrome on XP would not run ‘profile problem’ – back to IE (yeuk), found this fantastic page. ‘End process’ and ‘end process tree’ would not stop my 7 chrome.exe processes. Shutdown failed. So reluctantly it was hard re-boot time. Started Task Mgr then started Chrome … and it worked! So I didn’t need step 2 (maybe until next time).

Interestingly there’s 2 Chrome.exes when it first runs, a 3rd when I load a page, a 4th when I open a new tab. I have no idea if that’s normal.
- on August 4, 2011 at 5:10 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Nic , thats perfectly normal. For Chrome, each tab is a separate process. This way anything that happens to one tab does not affect another.
on August 5, 2011 at 1:49 am | Reply Anonymous

Thank you for maintaining this excellent post for over a year

rgds/Nic
on August 5, 2011 at 1:50 am | Reply Nic Vine

Thank you for maintaining this excellent post for over a year – it’s still generating value.
- on August 8, 2011 at 5:48 pm | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Thanks Nic !
on August 8, 2011 at 5:22 am | Reply dtdownunder

Thanks, the kill command did it!
on August 28, 2011 at 12:03 pm | Reply htf

Thank you very much! The second method did the job!
on September 24, 2011 at 5:04 am | Reply chankx

omg u save my day

thankx alot
on September 28, 2011 at 6:30 pm | Reply Anonymous

Thank you so much! I noticed you didn’t have the directory for XP so here it is:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

Thanks again!
- on September 29, 2011 at 2:21 am | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Thanks ! will add it to the post
on October 19, 2011 at 9:46 am | Reply Robby

I followed your advice, but still no old data recovered, especially bookmark… any other suggestions?
- on November 19, 2011 at 2:56 am | Reply Saravanan Thirumuruganathan
  
  Robby,
  
  Sorry for the delayed reply. Was busy with my research. Chrome stores Bookmarks as an ascii text file (JSOn encoded) inside the profile folder. Simply dropping it in the current folder seems to make it appear. I tried this in my system and it seems to work. Perhaps, you synced with Google account and that is causing some issue?
on December 28, 2011 at 3:02 pm | Reply Iffy09

None of these work for me, really getting annoyed now. This happened before but I tried the other method, renaming the default file as this (default_a) this worked up until today where it’s decided to stop again. I seem to have two default files, one which does not delete as it’s corrupt
on January 6, 2012 at 8:19 pm | Reply T

Method 1 worked for me. Thank you!
on January 8, 2012 at 1:32 am | Reply sakis

nice!
on me the error showed 2 times (after clicked ok it showed up again) i used the method to delete Web Data and then i saw error one time only then i did the last step and it worked! tnx man!
on January 19, 2012 at 1:44 pm | Reply Anonymous

Thank you! The method 3 worked for me after crash.
Nicola.
on March 7, 2012 at 7:36 am | Reply Koullis

MAN YOU ARE GREAT….
METHOD 2 WORKED FOR ME…
THANKS A LOT….
on March 26, 2012 at 2:28 am | Reply Anonymous

Damned!…THANKS a lot….method2 worked!!..i had this error for months just ignoring it…you ROCK!!!……
on March 30, 2012 at 3:53 am | Reply karfes

thanks method 1 helped on ubuntu 11.10
on March 30, 2012 at 4:40 am | Reply Anonymous

Great document – solved the issue for me. Thanks!
on March 30, 2012 at 1:02 pm | Reply choup

Nice method 2 worked well.
Thank you a lot.
on May 21, 2012 at 11:14 am | Reply Brandie

I tried all of these i was banking on method 4 but first off it wont let me rename the default file, i was messing around with the files inside the defualt folder and there were several that said that it could not read because file was corrupt so i try to delete them and it just says that they cannot be deleted because they are corrupt can someone help me out please!