Strange Issue With Google Chrome

[honestone]

I am having a strange issue with the latest version of Google Chrome. I have it installed on both of my macs running OS 10.11.3. For my mid 2013 13" MacBook Air, everything is fine. But for my late 2012 MacMIni, with a Sony 19" monitor attached, the issue persists. Let me explain.

Whenever I start to use either machine, I will first launch Outlook (part of Office 2011) to check my EMail. After I'm done, I quit Outlook, and then launch Google Chrome. My home page when I launch it is this page. I then visit 10 to 12 other sites, and in a specific order (force of habit!). The first one I visit after this one is www.macworld.com. That site usually has some useful articles on it, with graphical icons (pictures) being displayed. But, for my MacMini, the pictures are not there! It is just an "empty" box, next to the title of the article. I can click inside that empty box, and a succeeding page does appear. But, that is the only site that happens with. All other sites display fine. Again, this does not occur with my MacBook Air.

I did not see any differences with the version of Google Chrome I am using on both machines, including add-ons/extensions.

Any advice/assistance would be appreciated.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hey,

On the Mac mini ave you tried Chrome > Clear Browsing Data > Obliterate the following items from: the beginning of time and check everything except Passwords and Autofill form data, then quit and re-launch Chrome?

C

 

[honestone]

Unfortunately, that did not work. And, I have to re-enter all my "automatic" login information.

 

[Cory Cooper]

You shouldn't have to enter all that again if you unchecked Passwords and Autofill form data.

-Do you have the AdBlock or uBlock extensions installed/loaded?
-Have you tried Command-R force refresh of the Macworld site?

C

 

[honestone]

I have AdBlock and AdBlock Pro "installed", but not enabled. Same is true on my MacBook Air.

Command-R did not have any effect.

 

[Cory Cooper]

I didn't forget about this...just trying to think of more thing to try.

C

 

[honestone]

I didn't forget about this...just trying to think of more thing to try.

C

Thanks, Cory. I know it is difficult to pinpoint. A newer version of Google Chrome did come out a couple of days ago, but it did not help. I am also going to look more closely at as many settings as I can for my two machines and see if I can spot anything that would be applicable to the issue. If it was also occurring on my MacBook Air, it would make trouble shooting easier. But alas, that is not the case.

Thanks again.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No problem.

-I guess you could try removing the AdBlock extensions even though they aren't enabled, as that can correct the issue You can always reinstall them once the issue is cleared up.
-Also, you could try navigating to Google Chrome > Preferences > Show advanced settings... and in the Privacy section, uncheck Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly.

C

 

[honestone]

No go, Cory. In fact, I have both of my machines side by side, and went through each setting for Google Chrome. They are identical. For both machines, I even cleared browsing data, for all things except Passwords and Autofill form data. Still the same result: only the site www.macworld.com does not "behave nicely" on the Mac Mini, and only with Google Chrome. Firefox and Safari are fine.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hmmm...

I do know the Macworld site still uses Flash for their video content. Maybe it has something to do with the Flash settings in Chrome on the mini? Type chrome://plugins/ into the URL bar in Chrome and see if Adobe Flash Player is set to Always allowed to run.

Also, did you check all settings in Chrome, including Privacy > Content settings... > Images > Manage exceptions...?

C

 

[honestone]

That command actually needs a slash at the end, ie, chrome://plugins/. Also, when I entered that on both of my machines, the 4 plugins listed were identical, including Adobe Flash Player, and none of them were checked "Always allowed to run". For Flash Player, there has been quite a lot of bad press, with strong recommendations to disable it/delete it. I have done that on both machines.

For your other suggestions, everything was the same. I did, though, see under Privacy > Content Settings > All cookies and site data, for the mini, there was an "entry" for www.macworld.com, but not on the MacBook Air. I removed it on the mini, but it made no difference.

Oh well, the mystery goes on!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Yes, I must have cut off the trailing forward slash...edited above.

-Did you quit and relaunch Chrome after you removed the www.macworld.com entry on the mini?

This is really strange.

Maybe try downloading, installing, and running this: DNS Flusher on the mini?

C

 

[honestone]

Yes, I did quit and relaunch Chrome after removing that macworld entry.

Downloading and running DNS Flusher made no difference.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK...

-How about an Incognito Window to view the Macworld site?
-Are you using manual DNS entries in your Network prefs?
-Sounds like there has to be a cache/plist file that is causing it in ~ > Library > Application Support > Google > Chrome

C

 

[honestone]

I do have the entry "192.168.1.1" as a DNS entry, but again, it is the same on both machines.

For the Application Support "stuff", I did empty a couple of cache folders, plus I did see two macworld "files" in the folder "Local Storage" which I removed (then quit Chrome, and restarted it, with no change), but there were also files for this site, espn, youtube, etc.

It seems like this is like trying to find "a needle in a haystack", but the needle is small, and the haystack is huge! I really appreciate your assistance with this, Cory, but fortunately, it does not restrict my access to the stories associated with those missing images. For another twist, for the past week or so, there has been an image for a video on www.macworld.com regarding a "TomTom Spark review" (whatever that is; when I click on it, it does play), which appears just fine (again, on both of my Macs).

If it were possible, I would even try to "migrate"/copy everything associated with Google Chrome from my most recent backup of my MacBook Air to the Mac Mini. I guess I could also use the useful app AppCleaner to first get rid of everything associated with google chrome on the Mini before doing such a "migration". But, I don't think that would be an "easy"/viable project (although I would have a SuperDuper! backup), and since it is only affecting one site, with one browser, and only on one of my Macs, it seems best to leave things as they are.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Understood.

We have been pretty exhaustive in our troubleshooting...will let you know if I can think of anything else. I totally get wanting to just leave things as is, if that is the only issue.

Let me know if it gets resolved, or if you want to explore further.

C