Google-chrome – How to fix “Chrome couldn’t load plugin” flash error

Agreed with comments.

Update your browser because flash encountered a big vulnerability, then they blocked to use it until adobe won't release a new ersion. If you update your chrome you will get the newest flash, and it will work again. (I had the problem some days ago too)

I found a way to transfer without resetting. As you can guess, Chrome keeps around checksum/hash in the user profile.

I found the file is User Data\Default\Secure Preferences. This is a plain-text JSON file, so we can take a look of it. In this file there are this protection and super_mac, which stores the HMAC_SHA256 of the other objects. If verification fails, the reset is triggered. This feature is implemented in Chromium, so if you are interested you can read their source code.

The way I go is this:

1. Make sure you backup your old profile before anything. Make sure your User Data\Default\Extensions still has all extension directories.
2. Make sure you also sync everything you need to Google account. Note, even you do this, many local extension preferences are not synced (extension not support). That's why we need next steps.
3. Create a new profile. Then sync up with Google account. This will download every extension to the new profile. This step is to get you a good new Secure Preferences file.
4. Close Chrome. Find the Secure Preferences file from the new profile. Use it to replace the one in your old profile. Remove the new profile and replace with your old profile. Now you should have almost everything restored.
5. There is chance that some of your extensions (their preferences are still intact) are missing. This is because the extension directory path is versioned, and in step 3 Chrome created different path. You need to rename those from the old profile to the new one. Do not tamper the Secure Preferences.

Good luck. I really hope Google change mind to allow user to transfer profile, since they can't guarantee that every extension will implement the preference sync.

For time being, this method works on Chrome 49.0.2623.75. Google may change the verification method in the future.