Fixing “Chrome registration failed” error on Firefox 2.0.0.8+
Posted by shannonclark on November 1, 2007
Since the update to Firefox 2.0.0.8 I have been experiencing a problem of three “Chrome Registration Failed” error messages being presented to me every time I restarted Firefox.
With today’s update to Firefox 2.0.0.9 I had hoped that the problem would have been resolved.
Nope. Instead it only got worse, whenever I tried to update my add-ins and then edit their options, the add-ins pane froze. Looking on Mozilla.org I found one suggestion for a fix (delete the extensions.ini, extensions.cache and extensions.rdf files from your profile). On doing that however not only did it NOT fix my problem, but in fact it made it worse – every single add-in I had installed was reset to a “needs restart” and even after a restart the add-ins were not installing.
So on experimentation I tried the following:
(all this is on Windows Vista)
Right click on the Firefox icon on your desktop.
Select “run as administrator”
And poof – problems gone, all add-ins installed and working.
I then closed Firefox and restarted it (figured running as administrator is not a good general practice).
But count me as in the “pox on both your houses” camp here – to both Microsoft and to Mozilla.org. Microsoft for having such a clunky OS that occasionally you have to run processes as administrator (i.e. as “root”). And Mozilla.org for two serious bugs – first error messages that are BEYOND useless – reporting on an error WITHOUT NOTING WHAT CAUSED THE ERROR. And second, for building a USER application (a browser) which for some reason does something during the installation process of components (i.e. add-ins) which requires administrator rights.
Seriously bad coding somewhere.
And this is a case where Google failed me. Nothing I found after searching almost literally 100+ websites and online discussions had this fix, not even discussions on Mozilla.org (which reported inaccurate fixes for this problem in fact).
So hopefully this will help someone and the last two hours of my life which was wasted on fixing this will at least help someone else.
Update – some of the comments make it clear I was unclear in the above. After initially running Firefox as administrator I have not had to do so again, something about that one running fixed what I can only suspect were either permissions or registry issues. This fix has survived reboots and subsequent installations of additional Firefox plugins. Glad it has been helpful to a few of you (about 100 people or so a day have been reading this due mostly to Google searches)
Cheryl said
Shannon – Thanx for the “chrome registration” fix. I have Firefox v3.0.9 and this problem still exists. But it only started when I tried to install add-ons as you had mentioned. But the Administrator designation still works, glad you came up with that! Why, after all this time, has neither Microsoft nor Mozilla fixed this? Also, I’m betting many folks do not know by right-clicking on icons, you can find out much information as well as change designations, etc.
Again, a big thanx!
sky173d said
Wow! What a simple fix after mucho attempts to fix.
What aggravated me it the message says contact the munufacurer, etc. What manufacturer? How useless.
Amy said
Thanks so much for the chrome registration fix!!!
Faris said
Thank you Thank you Thank you. The easiest fix ever and all thanks to you. You Rock!
Carla said
Thanks so much! It immediately corrected the problem! This works for Firefox 3 on Vista.
Jim Stephens said
Thank you, thank you, thank you…for explaining HOW to launch Firefox as an administrator! I can finally run Firefox 3.0.10 in Vista again.
Meredith said
OMG Thank you so much. I have been “living” with this stupid problem for months. I decided to do a search today because it is getting so aggravating and causing me to use Explorer more then I care to and the first link gave me your quick and EASY fix which totally Worked. Google should be embarrassed that their stupid coding mistake and that you are solving so many peoples problems and not Them. Thanks again you made my day!!!!
shannonclark said
Just to be clear – Firefox is written by Mozilla so it is they, not Google who are at least partially to blame for this issue (Google has the entirely separate Chrome browser which is a new browser, not Firefox). I also believe that at least some blame lies on Vista which clearly is a source of at least some of the issues here as well.
hello said
Thank you for the fix. I was having a problem with Vista not shutting down. So I restored it to a configuration from 2 weeks ago. After I did the restore, everything started working much slower and I started having the “chrome registration” failure message with Firefox. Again thanks for posting the fix. I’ll probably end up having to wipe out everything and reinstall anyway.
Scott Stefan Gugino said
Thank you kindly, Ms. Clark. After ‘dealing with it’ for months I finally found your post.
shannonclark said
It is Mr. Clark not Ms, but happy I could help you!
jules said
thankyou so much!!!!! my notebook only started doing this after it came back from the manafacturer after a fault. now all fixed but kept getting this chrome registration failed message.luckily i googled chrome registration and yours was the 2nd link. i clicked yours 1st and it fixed the problem straight away!!!.so a big thanks to you that i havent spent hours trying to fix the problem and i’m really sorry to those who have.
twade said
Thank you so much this was causing me so many issues…i will give thios a try when i get home and report back my success…GOD BLESS YOU !
twade said
Hi Shannon, I have not tried the fix yet but am confident that it will work..I have a a question related to CD/DVD COMBO in my eMACHINE. Last week my CD stopped recognizing any cd’s [BLANK OR MUSIC]The DVD portion of the drive still reads and burns DVD’s…I have set the CPU back to a restore point prior to the issue …but that did not solve it…i’ve looked for drivers but cannot locate any online and the CPU came with no disk …any ideas would be appreciated…THNX IN ADVANCE
shannonclark said
Not sure what to suggest re the CD/DVD that sounds like it could be hardware but here are few suggestions.
1. Try rebooting into safe mode and seeing if the drive recognizes CD’s
2. Try removing the CD/DVD from your hardware list, then rebooting, Vista should detect your drive and re-add it, this can sometimes fix problems with drivers
Good luck
will said
Thanks so much! This error has been driving me nuts.
Mike said
A very nice fix.A thousand thanks.
David Sargeant said
Brilliantly simple when you know how !
Many many thanks for your posting – I’m sure that I only one of a multitude who will be thankfull for your efforts,
David Vildosola said
Very brilliant idea! I’m running Vista Ultimate on a 64-bit HP. So I was thinking that this could be another Vista issue. But simply the best, running as admin really solved the issue. Thanks a lot “Shannonclark”!
tinofbeans said
Thank you! This worked for me also. Your link was the first one that came up and this has to have been the easiest fix ever.
Veronica said
Great!!!
Thank you,
~Veronica.
Prasant said
Gr8 ….
Jason said
You are a legend!
I have never had any problems with FF until now and I am happy to find a solution
Aubrey said
Thanks so much! This worked great!
Delores said
Thank you so much for the fix and I agree with you on all counts. I have had nothing but problems since purchasing my new laptop with Vista. I went through a weeks worth of back and forth with Poser tech support to overcome the Vista problem. When I fixed that my Adobe Master Collection stopped working and had to find yet another fix. I really HATE Vista.
Andre said
Awesome awesome awesome! Thanks a bunch…it cleared up a lot of issues! Not only the chrome thing but other stuff too
Gail Drucker said
Thank you so much for your “easy fix”. I cleaned out my hard drive of all “unnecessary” files and I lost the chrome registration file. Your fix worked. Thanks again.
John D said
Many thanks…
Linda U said
Fantastic, saved me so much time. Now if I could just get rid of the Google End User Licence Agreement that comes up on start up, I would be very happy………..