MacOS – How to debug slow Chrome on MacBook Air

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I have a MacBook Air that is behaving poorly with Chrome. Symptoms include:

  1. Chrome often giving the "Ahh Snap" error message for lots of different websites, this happens frequently with the Google search page, when I enter a query to search, it often crashes.
  2. The insertion point for entering text is slow to respond to a click to position cursor.
  3. Web pages are slow to respond, for example, clicking on a message to select it for deletion inside Gmail can take a long time after clicking. This can take 30 seconds at times. Sometimes, if I click again, I get the multi-colored rainbow spinning wheel.
  4. Craig's List and Garnet Hill pictures do not appear in Chrome.

None of these issues happen with Safari. I've confirmed that speed tests show excellent Internet connectivity. I've run the Activity Monitor and no process in using significant CPU percentage. I'm running OS X Lion.

Should I try upgrading to OS X Mountain Lion? Should I reinstall Chrome. Should I reinstall my extensions to Chrome? How can I best track down the issue?

Best Answer

I'd start by creating a new "User" in Chrome.

Chrome > Preferences: New User

This will give you a fresh start on preferences and extensions.

If the new user has no issue then you likely have a bad extension or preference.

Chrome and Safari are both memory pigs these days (in exchange for which they are wicked fast when they have enough memory). How much RAM does your Air have?

When you look at the Chrome console when images fail to load is there anything interesting there? Chrome > View > Developer > JavaScript Console

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