Chrome doesn't start or crashes immediately

This often happens when running ChromeDriver or Chrome using a special test harness (perhaps an IDE) or continuous build system (such as 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 or 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 can run Chrome from a command prompt, your next step should be to see if the same problem occurs when running your test in a testing environment (preferably launching the test binary or 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 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 installs 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. 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.