I also have a similar problem. It first manifests itself when I get to the Gmail login page, where it won't let me type a username or password. I can still type into the address bar or into other Windows applications - so my workaround has been to type into Notepad and copy and paste into Chrome. I tried switching to IE after noticing the problem, but I still couldn't type into the textboxes on the login page. I also tried using a USB keyboard without any change. The problem occurs once every few weeks for me.
I found this page: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/60-anti-idle-the-game/topics/194864 which suggests disabling the Flash plugin. I disabled the Microsoft Office, Quicktime Player and Windows Live Photo Gallery plugins so far, and the problem went away, without even restarting Chrome.
I suspect it IS related to Chrome plugins. I suggest experimenting with disabling some plugins and see if that helps. I'll post here if I discover the one culprit plugin.
Nothing happens.
This is always false, by design; if you make a mouse click, lines of code get executed. Now, you don't get the expected result; what happens at ... in "Click --> ... --> Browser pops up"?
Click!
You've clicked; so, the driver catches processes this and together with the kernel and window manager it produces a mouse event which is then processed. You can see this being processed, as the icon lights up at the bottom; the task bar informs there that it has received its mouse event. We can be certain that this part of the executed code works.
Locating and launching the executable...
The icon on the task bar has a location specified in its properties; the executable there is found, properties are checked and then finally it is launched. Well, if everything goes right; it could be that locating goes wrong, but then you would get a warning and it could also be that the properties or launching goes wrong, but then you get a warning as well. So, nothing really goes wrong here, if you can see the process; if it did, you would see this by either a warning or an entry in the event logs.
Google Chrome's turn.
So, the executable is launched; now Google Chrome starts to load all its libraries, all its settings, all data, your user profile and some more. That's really a mouthful; so yeah, a lot can go wrong here. Will it tell you what went wrong? Not always. Will some uneducated fix attempt work? Maybe, unlikely.
Where's my browser window?!
It is there, or maybe it isn't; hard to tell. For all we know, as you described the process is present; because you are able to use its tasks. So, it is either stuck on something or something failed; but what. This is where you need to inspect the situation.
Look at the state of the multiple processes, look at their threads; which functions are they stuck at? If you can't see it from the current state as is, you'll need to look at a trace instead; does it write to some log file? Does it result in ACCESS DENIED trying to access some file? Is a file missing? ...?
Can I or anyone tell what went wrong without such details; no, we can't, you'll need to inspect how things work in order to know why it is broken the way it is.
I just want my browser window!
Sometimes you can't fix something that is horribly broke; you need to start over then, that means by trying to replace things from the bottom up from easy to hard:
- Start a new browser profile.
- Reinstall the browser.
- Start a new user profile.
- Restore a backup.
- Reinstall your operating system.
- Buy a new computer.
Up to you whether you want to troubleshoot and fix it or nuke it and start from scratch.
Best Answer
Find your way to the user settings.
Right-click to Properties on "User Data" and go to the Security/Advanced tab. Click the box Replace permission entries…
Worked like a charm for me.