Chrome can't load certain sites but Safari can - how can I diagnose the problem? Please note: this question is from 2013, but it's received some recent answers (2017). I personally haven't experienced this problem for several years. It's possible that others still have the same issue and that answers to this question might help them -- but it seems more likely that my problem was fixed long ago and that more recent issues are actually a different problem.



When accessing the internet from my home connection, Google Chrome has trouble accessing certain sites that use https. These include Google search, Facebook and discussions.apple.com, but for some reason Gmail is ok. This is on a Retina Macbook Pro with 10.8.3 Mountain Lion.

Given the symptoms described below, it the issue seems likely to be some misconfiguration of the router, which unfortunately I'm not in a position to change. However, since it works in Safari but not Chrome, the two browsers must be doing something differently. What I would really like to know is how I can diagnose what this difference is. 

What happens when I try to access the site varies depending on the site. Google search works intermittently, and when it doesn't work it times out as if the server was down. Facebook.com consistently renders the first two wall posts but then stops loading. The Apple forums just sit there forever with a white screen.

I can access these sites just fine in Safari, and they also work fine when I'm browsing via the WiFi at work. It's only when I'm (a) using the ethernet cable at home, and (b) using Google Chrome that the problem occurs. Unfortunately I have no access to the router at home, because the internet is part of my rental agreement and I just have an ethernet socket in my room.

I have tried the following things (and possibly more) to no avail:


Clearing all brower data in Chrome (cache, cookies etc.)
Disabling all extensions and restarting Chrome
Switching to Google public DNS
Checking my proxy settings in OS X. (No proxies are configured. Both Safari and Chrome use the system settings.)
Checking that my IP address is the same when browsing via https from Chrome and Safari (it is.)
Looking for any suspicious messages in Console. (There are several about things relating to Spotlight, but nothing relating to Chrome, and nothing comes up when I try to load these sites.)
Disabling "Predict network actions to improve page load performance" in Chrome preferences. This changes the symptoms slightly (Facebook times out instead of displaying the first two wall posts; other sites behave the same as before) but does not resolve the issue.
Rebooting into safe mode
Deleting my Chrome profile
Deleting all the other files in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome
Setting ipv6 to "Link-local only" in system preferences
Turning off ipv6 completely by running networksetup -setv6off Ethernet in Terminal
Accessing the web via TOR. The problem does not occur, but the connection is too slow for regular use.


My question is, what else can I do to try and work out what the problem is? Chrome is obviously doing something different from what Safari does when trying to access these sites, and I'd like to know what that is, with a view to either solving the problem for myself, or at least being able to submit a bug report to whichever party is responsible.
You did eventing right except for one step.

Making new account.

Quit Google Chrome completely.

Go to the Go menu > Go to Folder.

Enter the following directories in the text field, then press Go.
    ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/

Locate the folder called "Default" in the directory window that opens and rename it as "Backup default."

Try opening Google Chrome again. A new "Default" folder is automatically created as you start using the browser.

Alternatively you can "teach" your browser.

That is done by adding the :80 to the web address.

Example www.myseite.com:80

Also run the netstat -a -p tcp  to see if https (443) are open)

Last not least, turn off the experimental "Built-in Asynchronous DNS" is Disabled in chrome://flags/