If you’ve updated Google Chrome to version 78 and noticing “Aw, Snap!” errors in Chrome when you launch it, you’re not alone, Google has acknowledged they’re aware of this issue and suggests to update Symantec Endpoint Protection to version 14.2 or later.
If you’re using Windows Defender or other third-party Antivirus such as Avast or Kaspersky other than Symantec and affected, then try this workaround as the issue is caused by Renderer Code Integrity Protection that was enabled by Chrome 78 on all Windows 10 versions.
What happened?
Google has released Chrome 78 for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms on October 22, 2019. The new version has brought several new features and improvements.
Google has enabled Chrome to Render Integrity feature by default on Windows 10 from version 1511 or later, from version 78 onwards to “prevent unsigned modules from loading in Chrome browser’s renderer processes”.
The new feature seems to have caused Chrome users running incompatible software to receive “Aw, Snap!” errors, the reports were admitted by the Chrome team and asked users to share information in the help forum if they’re affected.
The new Chrome security feature may trigger some incompatibility issues with third-party security solutions, especially Symantec Endpoint Protection (14.0.3929.1200 and earlier), you should be updating it to 14.2 or later to avoid issues.
The workaround involves disabling Renderer Code Integrity in Chrome, here is how you can do that.
1. Right-click on Chrome shortcut on the desktop and select “Properties”
2. In the “Target” field at the end, append the following command line switch and click Apply.
--disable-features=RendererCodeIntegrity
Or
Change Chome executable present in this path “C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application ” to Chrom.exe instead of Chrome.exe and see if it works.
How do you right click and select properties on a Mac?
I am 4 hours into this and none of the fixes are working for me.
This is really biting into my business….
Google has disabled the feature that caused the issues, just see restarting the browser fixes the issue or run Chrome with the command line flag. https://techdows.com/2019/10/google-disables-renderer-code-integrity-feature-in-chrome-78-as-it-founds-more-applications-not-compatible-with-it.html
I have spent two days researching the ‘Aw Snap’ issue and have tried everything and nothing works; I cannot access anything in Google Chrome. It seems that for the past year or so, I encounter some problem with Chrome that requires an uninstall/reinstall but this time, not even that helps. I like Chrome and have put up with those inconveniences but now, after all these failed attempts and wasted time, I feel that I must move on and get used to another browser. Goodbye Google Chrome!
The simplest fix you can try which is working for others as from reports is rename Chrome executable. Right click on Chrome shortcut on desktop, select Properties, click open file location, rename Chrome to Chrom, done.