Argthtjtr

I've been having trouble for with chrome for the past few days.

Chrome would freeze for several minutes each time I open it up. Once Chrome starts working again everything is normal, but it's frustrating when you have to wait several minutes before you can do anything with your web browser.

I managed to find one solution to this, which I have posted as an answer below, but if anyone else has had similar problems and managed to solve them, please feel free to tell us how.

I found the solution to chrome's startup freezing in the comments of this chrome issue report:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=374624

This was comment #27, all credit goes to the author of the comment for figuring it out:

I am working on this issue right now.

Using some clues from you all here, I've tracked it down this.

Process explorer shows a security token request and termination loop
happening under lsass.exe, with token being
:1c42f

Such as: Smith_VAIOJohn:1c42f

Upon inspection with Process Monitor, we see the following:

11:34:57.3492434 AM lsass.exe 908 RegQueryKey HKLM SUCCESS Query:
HandleTags, HandleTags: 0x0 11:34:57.3492833
AM lsass.exe 908 RegOpenKey HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionProfileListS-1-5-21-563832473-1690269938-841482641-1000 SUCCESS Desired
Access: Read 11:34:57.3493295
AM lsass.exe 908 RegQueryValue HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionProfileListS-1-5-21-563832473-1690269938-841482641-1000ProfileImagePath SUCCESS Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ, Length: 28, Data: C:UsersJohn 11:34:57.3493613
AM lsass.exe 908 RegQueryValue HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionProfileListS-1-5-21-563832473-1690269938-841482641-1000ProfileImagePath SUCCESS Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ, Length: 28, Data: C:UsersJohn 11:34:57.3493926
AM lsass.exe 908 RegCloseKey HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionProfileListS-1-5-21-563832473-1690269938-841482641-1000 SUCCESS
11:34:57.3495197
AM lsass.exe 908 CreateFile C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectS-1-5-21-563832473-1690269938-841482641-513Preferred PATH
NOT FOUND Desired Access: Generic Read, Disposition: Open, Options:
Sequential Access, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File,
Attributes: HS, ShareMode: Read, AllocationSize: n/a, Impersonating:
Smith_VAIOJohn

This behavior loops.

Sometimes throwing in:

11:34:57.1073869
AM lsass.exe 908 CreateFile C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST SUCCESS Desired
Access: Generic Read/Write, Disposition: OpenIf, Options: Synchronous
IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Random Access, Attributes: HS,
ShareMode: None, AllocationSize: 0, Impersonating: Smith_VAIOJohn,
OpenResult: Opened 11:34:57.1074461
AM lsass.exe 908 QueryStandardInformationFile C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST SUCCESS AllocationSize:
24, EndOfFile: 24, NumberOfLinks: 1, DeletePending: False, Directory:
False 11:34:57.1074769
AM lsass.exe 908 CreateFileMapping C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST FILE
LOCKED WITH WRITERS SyncType: SyncTypeCreateSection, PageProtection:
11:34:57.1075034
AM lsass.exe 908 QueryStandardInformationFile C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST SUCCESS AllocationSize:
24, EndOfFile: 24, NumberOfLinks: 1, DeletePending: False, Directory:
False 11:34:57.1075669
AM lsass.exe 908 CreateFileMapping C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST SUCCESS SyncType:
SyncTypeOther 11:34:57.1076805
AM lsass.exe 908 CloseFile C:UsersJohnAppDataRoamingMicrosoftProtectCREDHIST SUCCESS

So...Using that info, I went to the path
"C:UsersJohnAppdataRoamingMicrosoftProtect" and found one
folder with a random guid that was created days ago. lsass.exe was
currently still in a 'stuck' state, when I deleted this guid folder,
and another one was immediately created with a new guid. The next
step is probably unnecessary, but I deleted the newly created guid
folder as well, and this time it did not respawn. lsass.exe processor
time was back to normal. I attempted to close chrome, at which point
it closed properly. I reopened chrome, observed lsass use some cpu
for about 10 seconds, then stop. I closed chrome, and the process
terminated properly yet again. I then reopened chrome to observe the
same behavior as previous (normal behavior).

So, conclusion, the folder located at
"C:Users\appdataroamingmicrosoftprotect" must be
deleted.

That worked in my case.

Hope you value the info!

I'm just posting it here because I had a hard time finding this solution and I hope I can make it easier for someone else in the future.

I did exactly what the author of the comment suggested, once I deleted the folder, and reran chrome, the folder was recreated, but the chrome no longer froze. The folder has a strange name that consists of a long line of different characters, and it appears to be empty, but deleting it definitely did the trick for me.

Good luck!