Google Chrome fails to start

This is the error I get when I run google-chrome in the terminal:

[0505/065554:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)] Failed to create /home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory. [0505/065554:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)] Failed to create /home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory. [3545:3545:0505/065557:ERROR:nss_util.cc(94)] Failed to create /home/pipi/.pki/nssdb directory. [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(417)] readlink failed: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)] readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)] readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(277)] Failed to create /home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(417)] readlink failed: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(253)] readlink(/home/pipi/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock) failed: Permission denied [3545:3545:0505/065558:ERROR:chrome_browser_main.cc(1213)] Failed to create a ProcessSingleton for your profile directory. This means that running multiple instances would start multiple browser processes rather than opening a new window in the existing process. Aborting now to avoid profile corruption. 

3 Answers

Correct the ownership, assuming pipi is your username:

chown -R pipi:pipi /home/pipi 

and the permissions for all folders:

find /home/pipi -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 775 

775 - These are the default permissions when you create a new folder.

A lot of people have said that removing ~/.gtkrc-2.0 would do the trick. And sometimes permission would be the culprit. I had the same problem but neither helped! Uninstalling and installing chrome also doesn't help.

Turns out, when Chrome crashes sometimes the User Data Directory can get corrupted. So to fix it I did the following:

1. Uninstall chrome apt-get purge google-chrome-stable
2. Install chrome
3. Remove the cache and configuration folders. rm -rf /home/<<your username>>/.config/google-chrome/ and rm -rf /home/<<your username>>/.cache/google-chrome/
4. Start Chrome and enjoy!

1. Delete google-chrome or chromium folder in .config

   rm -rf ~/.config/google-chrome/ 

2. Rename google-chrome-backup or chromium-backup

   mv ~/.config/chromium-backup chromium 

3. Restart Chrome or Chromium.