Google Earth crashes on startup

[Traxan]

For some inexplicable reason, Google Earth will not launch. It crashes on startup, when it logs into the Google Earth server. It generates a DMP file but it's useless to me.

My system:

Core 2 Quad
Intel 775 mobo
4GB memory
Radeon 1800GTO, latest Radeon drivers
Fully patched for everything. .Net 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 installed
Java is installed
My security software is Avira AntiVir and Web Root Spy Sweeper, but disabling them does nothing.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[wheresmybacon]

Does it get past the logo screen? Inexplicably, one of my users suddenly is experiencing a freeze and 100% proc utilization from whatever the google earth process is called, right @ the logo screen on launch.

I haven't had time to troubleshoot this yet, but I will tomorrow.

 

[BlueWeasel]

We had this problem with a system at work. Apparently, the local cache or KMZ file was corrupted.

I uninstalled, made sure to delete the GE directory and any GE files I could find, reinstalled, and it worked fine.

 

[Traxan]

No it never gets past the splash screen. As soon as it goes to log in to the server, boom.

Really weak of Google. The error message tells you nothing and there is no help on their site at all for it.

I'll try the cache thing.

 

[Traxan]

Ok I made progress. I had always used the desktop icon. When I went to uninstall it from the Start menu, I noticed some different icons. One said Start Google Earth in DirectX Mode and Start Google Earth in OpenGL Mode. When I chose DX, it opened GE in DirectX 8 mode and worked perfectly. When I switched back to OpenGL, *barf*. So the problem seems to be OpenGL. I'm using the latest Radeon drivers. Any ideas?