Chrome doesn't start or crashes immediately

This often happens when running ChromeDriver/Chrome using a special test harness (perhaps an IDE) or continuous build system (e.g., Jenkins).

First, try launching the same Chrome binary that your test uses from a normal user command prompt (check your chromedriver.log file to see what Chrome is being used). If you are passing any special command line switches/arguments to Chrome, make sure to include those too. If Chrome fails to start correctly, you need to fix your installation of Chrome (perhaps by re-installing).

Assuming you are able to run Chrome from a command prompt, your next step should be to see if the same problem occurs when running your test in a simple testing environment (preferably launching the test binary/script directly from a normal user's command prompt). You should also check that you are able to launch Chrome directly from your test (without using WebDriver/ChromeDriver). For example, in Java, you may use the ProcessBuilder API to start the Chrome binary directly. If your test exhibits the same problem even in a simple testing environment, file a new issue with instructions on how to reproduce the problem.

Otherwise, if the problem only occurs in your special testing environment:

Using Chrome's alternate installer. This will install Chrome for all users. This often fixes problems if you are running Selenium as a background service.

A common cause for Chrome to crash during startup is running Chrome as root user (administrator) on Linux. While it is possible to work around this issue by passing '--no-sandbox' flag when creating your WebDriver session, such a configuration is unsupported and highly discouraged. Please configure your environment to run Chrome as a regular user instead.

If none of these solutions fixes the problem, file a new issue with instructions on how to reproduce the problem. If your issue only occurs in a special, uncommon testing environment, be aware that the ChromeDriver devs may choose not to investigate/resolve your issue.