Opening Chrome icon flashes up then disappears A friend has just downloaded and installed Chrome for Mac OS (current version 51).

When they click to open Chrome the icon appears briefly in the dock, then disappears and Chrome closes.

The behavior is replicated if you try to launch Chrome form the command line using

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome


They get an error

Failed to create /Users/NAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/SingletonLock


If they run with sudo they are able to start Chrome.

sudo /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome


How can we fix this? We've tried reinstalling Chrome and the problem persists.
We fixed this by deleting the lock file in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/SingletonLock and everything else in the profile running

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome


Seems related to the Chrome is not opening on the Google Chrome Help forum.