Chrome displays a page for split second then it goes blank

Google Chrome has been getting worse and worse over the last few months. When I open many (but not all) web pages, as soon as the page is done loading, the browser window goes completely blank.

Others have spoken about this:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/3oJZY2Qu-Mk

The Chrome team seem to be quiet about this problem, and it's happening so badly to me that Chrome is pretty much unusuable. Has anyone been able to fix this properly?

I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

I too experienced this on some different versions of Chrome and while I'm not quite sure where in the renderer this problem comes from, I can offer a workaround. It seems it is somehow related to delayed rendering of several tabs you open at once when you restore last session or otherwise open many windows at once. Activating each of them seems to make problem go away. Just holding down Ctrl+Tab for a few seconds as it sweeps over all tabs should help.

There are many reports of such problems with various (too many) solutions. I have collected below some of them, but by no means all. The possible causes for this problem seem really endless.

1. Slightly incorrect answer returned by the web server.
   Google Chrome’s blank/white page bug explains that the server returning a Content-Length header whose value is greater than the actual length of the content throws Chrome off, while all other browsers handle it with no problem. The only solution here is to use another browser, or wait until Chrome fixes this issue.
2. Why does Chrome load blank pages? offers the solution "opening the dev tool (cmd + shift + i) forces the page to render".
3. Black Screen On Chrome blames Chrome's usage of the GPU, but the solution by SinthujanLevel maybe applies only to PC.
4. Issue 114683: Load webpage, then it goes completely blank blames Flash for the problem. The solution (beside killing Flash) was to disable Flash hardware acceleration.
5. Issue 5882 says that using Adblock with the "block ads in videos and flash" option fixes the problem.
6. Is chrome really dead? Blank screen issue says that the problem comes from Chrome needing more shared memory than the system default. The solution is to enter
   # sysctl kern.ipc.shmall=17731, or to make it work on boot:
   echo 'kern.ipc.shmall=17731' >> /etc/sysctl.conf.

Do you have a URL where you can reliably reproduce this problem? If so, please share - it'd be helpful if we could try it on a few other platforms to see if it's an issue (same problem or other weird behaviour) using Chrome for Windows or testing with Chromium.

You may want to also disable all extensions for a while - I'd be more suspicious of an extension bug than the main browser, since Chrome is almost certainly better tested than extensions. Some extensions, like ad blockers, modify the markup before Chrome can render them. That could be the culprit.

If this is still happening with no extensions enabled, open the developer console (on Windows the shortcut is CTRL-SHIFT-I). Some clues that something problematic has been received may include a red icon with a number beside it in the bottom-right corner (JavaScript error(s)), or an empty or near-empty pane showing the HTML markup in the leftmost tab (I have no full browser accessible - sorry, I can't get the name of the tab).

Now that I think of it, I think I've seen this behaviour a couple of times in Chrome for Windows. a refresh always fixed it, but it happened so rarely I never investigated.

I have resolved this issue by disabling one of the browser extensions (named Download). I do not know how it got added on my browser, but somebody suggested in another forum to try deactivating the extensions and it worked for me.

I was having problems with my other browsers as well: Firefox also stopped responding, and I couldn't even open Internet Explorer. Uninstalling Chrome and Firefox fixed IE.

If it's the same issue I've been experiencing lately, closing and reopening the browser doesn't seem to help (I'm also using multiple Chrome profiles, but not sure if that's related).

The only thing (besides a reboot) that resolves the issue is to close Chrome running from the systray (notifications area of the taskbar, lower right corner) by right-clicking and choosing 'Exit'. Ending the task via Task Manager would probably do the trick, but the systray icon method should provide for a cleaner exit. Then just relaunch the browser, and all the tabs should be back.

Click on the Chrome icon in the taskbar to minimize, then click the icon a second time to resize. This works every time on every site on both of my computers, though it's still a pain.

I too faced the same problem. I realized that the problem started after installing some extension "Smiley Bar for Facebook". Just by ending the background process of the "Smiley Bar Facebook" extension the problem vanished.

On top right, you can see settings option from where you can end Background process.

Hope that helps...

Yes, I had the same problem on FreeBSD, but it seemed that it only occurred after several tabs were opened.

I fixed it, at least for now, by changing my kern.ipc.shmall setting from 32768 to 65536.

Chrome dev are you listening. The problem is that the page has finished loading but is not displayed. One solution above works "Click on the Chrome icon in the taskbar to minimize, then click the icon a second time to resize". Another trick I have found, is to click on another tab and immediately come back to the tab that was not showing and viola! the page will be there.

Hardware acceleration caused the problem.

Solution:

Go to "settings", then "Show advanced settings...", uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available".

It solved the problem on my Chrome version 27.0.1453.93 (MacBook Pro, Snow Leopard).