Troubleshoot Chrome Browser Performance Issues

Applies to Windows users who sign in to a managed account on Chrome browser.

Is Chrome running too slow or using too much memory? This guide outlines how to troubleshoot Chrome browser performance issues on Microsoft Windows devices.

Step 1: Check Common Issues

First, verify if the issue is a known problem by reviewing:

• Common browser issues
• Troubleshoot Chrome crashes

Step 2: Diagnose the Cause

If basic checks don't resolve the issue, gather specific information to try and diagnose the cause.

Determine When Performance Reduces

Write down the events that correlate with the slowdown:

• Startup: Do you experience reduced performance as soon as you start the browser?
• Tab Load: Does it run slower when you load more than one webpage? If so, how many?
• Duration: Was the browser running continuously for a few days? If so, for how long?
• Shared Environment: Do you run Chrome in a shared environment (e.g., Windows Remote Desktop Services, Citrix XenApp, VMWare Horizon)? Does performance depend on the number of concurrent users?

Identify Processes with High CPU Usage

Use Windows Task Manager or another process manager (like Process Explorer) to identify processes with high CPU usage.

Determine the type of process causing the slowdown. In Process Explorer, check the command-line parameters:

• --type=renderer: Responsible for one or more tabs or extensions currently in use.
• If you don’t see the --type parameter: the process is responsible for all disk and network access and user interactions.

Common Scenarios:

• Main Process Slowdown: Often caused if disk access is slow or there is not enough system memory available.
• Renderer Process High CPU: Often caused by web apps that aren't well programmed. Isolate tabs to identify which web apps or webpages are reducing performance.
• GPU Process Slowdown: Often caused by an issue with a particular graphics card driver, or rendering graphics-intensive pages (3D images, YouTube videos).

Step 3: Record Browser Traces Using Perfetto

Use the Perfetto extension to start and stop Chrome performance traces from the Perfetto trace viewer UI.

1. If using Perfetto for the first time, install the Perfetto UI extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open the Perfetto UI in a Chrome window.
3. (Optional) Configure Privacy:
   • Keep default behavior (Recommended): Under Probes > Chrome browser, ensure "Remove untyped and sensitive data like URLs from the traces" is turned off. This helps support engineers but includes PII like URLs. Share only with trusted engineers.
   • Omit PII: Turn on "Remove untyped and sensitive data like URLs from the trace". The trace will only contain pseudonymous performance data.
4. Start the Trace:
   • Under Record settings, click Target device.
   • At the top, click Chrome.
   • Under Select target device, ensure Tracing extension is Connected.
   • Click Start tracing.
5. Capture the action you want to trace in Chrome. Tracing ends automatically after 90 seconds, or click Stop to end manually.
6. On the left, under Current trace, click Download to save the generated file.

Note: During the trace, leave the Perfetto UI tab open. If you close it, tracing stops and data is not kept.

Step 4: Collect and Share ETW Data

If you can't identify the process causing high CPU usage, try recording performance event traces using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW).

1. Download the Tool

1. Go to the GitHub project page and download the latest release of UIforETW (e.g., etwpackage1.49.zip).
2. Extract the contents and run etwpackage\bin\UIforETW.exe to install the Windows Performance Toolkit. Wait for installations to finish.

2. Record ETW Traces

1. Open UIforETW.
2. Note: In settings, select these Chrome tracing categories: input, toplevel, latency, blink.user_timing, disable-by-default-toplevel.flow.
3. Click Start Tracing. The tool records the last 10–60 seconds of activity.
4. Reproduce the slowdown.
5. Press Ctrl+Win+R to save the trace buffers to a file.
6. In the Trace information field, enter a description of the problem and where in the trace it occurred.
7. Right-click the list of traces and select Browse folder to find the .etl and .txt files in the documents\etwtraces folder.

3. Share with Chrome Engineers

1. Upload the trace files to Google Drive (do not share yet).
2. Create a new Chromium bug and paste the Google Drive link.
3. When requested by Chrome engineers, share the file. Important: Only share with email addresses ending with @google.com or @chromium.org.

Source: Troubleshoot Chrome browser performance issues.