Chrome buttons/URL bar unresponsive to mouse-clicks

[rh71]

I've posted this on the official Chrome help forum to no avail so I wanted to try more avenues. Two issues - and I will first mention that all of this happens even with every extension disabled, and in the few prior versions of Chrome (been happening for months).

If I open a secondary Chrome window (not tab but a new browser window - Ctrl-N) or even incognito (Ctrl-Shift-N), and go to any random URL like ford.com, only the actual page content & links respond, but nothing that's part of Chrome such as the URL bar, tabs/new tab, the bookmark buttons up top, or even minimize/restore/close buttons at the top right will respond. It's acting like I'm not even clicking on them. Even after a reboot.

Second issue - in a normal single Chrome window, I have issues with clicking on website popup buttons that ask things like if I'm sure I want to leave or stay on the page. An example is when music is playing through Google Play Music and I try to close the tab. Neither of the Leave/Stay buttons are clickable (and not grayed out) and even the page in the background is unclickable. The only way to respond to the popup is to change to another Windows app (alt-tab) and then back to Chrome which puts focus back on the popup and I have to use tab or space (which clicks it) to respond to it.

I wanted to also mention that after an uninstall or sometimes reboot, the issue goes away for a day or so, but comes back eventually. Already tried clearing cache, logging out and staying out of my profile, etc. I've tried a reinstall with reboot, even Chrome Canary (beta) but it's still happening.

Version 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit)
Google Chrome is up to date

 

[Ketchup]

What add-ins are you running?

 

[rh71]

What add-ins are you running?

If you mean extensions, I mentioned all of them are disabled. But they include adblock, mouse gestures, etc.

 

[Ketchup]

Gotcha. Trying to think of something. Did it start with a specific version? More than one computer?

 

[rh71]

Gotcha. Trying to think of something. Did it start with a specific version? More than one computer?

It's not more than 1 computer, just this one on my primary home WIN10 desktop, and it doesn't seem to matter what Chrome version (last few versions). I also have Chrome on my WIN7 work laptop (installed to test sites) which has zero problems, but then again I'm not logged into a profile there or customized it at all. I'll try that tomorrow, but I'm not hopeful to reproduce it there.

 

[edt]

Well its great to know someone has the same issue as me, been suffereing from this issue for months. Its very hard to describe, show or google. Very strange. I don't suppose you found a solution? I am considering doing a windows 10 reset to resolve it.

Would be interesting to understand if there is any similarity in our setup. I don't think its driver related because I upgraded my entire PC (but did not reinstall the OS) and the problem persists.

I have often kinda suspected Discord. Do you run this?

Ed

 

[deustroop]

Does event viewer show any video errors ? Is the machine updated to CU, Win 1703 ? Did the errors begin prior to CU ?

 

[rh71]

Well its great to know someone has the same issue as me, been suffereing from this issue for months. Its very hard to describe, show or google. Very strange. I don't suppose you found a solution? I am considering doing a windows 10 reset to resolve it.

Would be interesting to understand if there is any similarity in our setup. I don't think its driver related because I upgraded my entire PC (but did not reinstall the OS) and the problem persists.

I have often kinda suspected Discord. Do you run this?

Ed

It has resolved itself over the last week. I don't know how. I even enabled all my extensions back since it was bugging anyway but all the buttons and URL bar work in incognito and new windows again. I don't believe it was immediately following doing that either. But only time will tell if it stays resolved because it has fixed itself for a day or so in the past. The next morning after idling it would just bug again.

No I don't run Discord.

Does event viewer show any video errors ? Is the machine updated to CU, Win 1703 ? Did the errors begin prior to CU ?

My shutdown menu seems to persistently show "update and shut down" or "update and restart". I choose the latter every time but the update request remains. I will say I have denied the request to update to CU (snooze). So it's been happening without it. No desire to update at any point.

 

[deustroop]

Ok but you apparently have a problem with Windows Update. You may want to revisit your decision when an update comes along you need, (if ever, lol).

 

[rh71]

Since I I had to actually go into Windows Update and hit Restart from there to get it to fully update to CU. I'm running CU now and Chrome is still fine too. Same Chrome version as in the OP.

EDIT> But I did just force it up to Version 59.0.3071.86 (Official Build) (64-bit).