For the last 10 days or so, Chrome and Edge users including Brave started reporting they’re seeing debug.log file on the desktop. According to reports, it is created when they open PDF files in Chrome or Edge, or another Chromium browser. A bug was filed back in 2017 for the same, so the issue isn’t new. After the recent reports, Google now has finally reacted and readied a fix.
When you open the debug.log file, it shows this error: “FindFirstfile: The system cannot find the path specified.”. We found plenty of debug.log files in our download folder. We’re not sure when and which created them and whether they are related to the current issue.
Debug.log file on the desktop
Recently, the issue was reported by users on the Answers forum [1] [2] [3] and the Chrome Help forum.
What’s common among the reported is
- All using Chromium-based browsers
- Have debug.log file on the desktop
- Some claim the debug file generated after opening PDFs in the browser
Workarounds
A couple of workarounds haven’t been accepted as working by many. Those are
- Uninstalling and reinstalling Edge or Chrome or Brave
- Removing Crashpad contents. The Crashpad folder can be opened by running this command in Run dialog or File explorer
%localappdata%GooglechromeUser DataCrashpad
%localappdata%MicrosoftEdgeUser DataCrashpad
As we said above, the issue is 3-yeard old and the Chromium team member created it in 2017.
The bug description claims opening any .html fie results in Chrome to create a “debug.log” file in the directory.
A new bug has been submitted for the same four days back with different repro steps, but the Chromium team marked and closed that one as a duplicate.
Google readies Fix for debug.log file
The good news is Chromium team readied a patch to fix the debug.log file issue. This is currently in review at the moment.
So the issue is related to Crashpad. And Google has got a better understanding of what causing debug.file to create, expect them to push the fix to Canary first followed by other versions.
Are you affected? What’s your take on the issue? Let us know in the comments below.
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Yes, I opened a PDF file on Chromium Edge and noticed later the debug.txt on my Downloads folder.