Only Chrome won't open fully from the taskbar or anywhere else (I'm only using one monitor)

Every "solution" to this online has been either overly generic (reboot your computer, etc) or involves multiple monitors. However, I'm only using one monitor. This is on a Dell XPS desktop non-touch screen Win 11. This is driving me absolutely mad.

I can get the miniature preview of the window by hovering over the Chrome icon on the task bar, but can't actually open the window. When I click, double click, anything, it just closes the preview and nothing else. Any attempt to uninstall Chrome is met with "Please close all Google Chrome windows and try again" even though I did close them by right clicking and verifying in the task manager.

To tell you the truth, I had this issue once before on the same PC and I completely forgot how I fixed it, now I can't find that solution again. Can anyone help me before I lose it? This only effects Chrome and nothing else at all.

Thanks.

Maybe deleting that shortcut from the Taskbar then right-clicking the Chrome icon in the Start menu then Pin to Taskbar?

Berton said:

Maybe deleting that shortcut from the Taskbar then right-clicking the Chrome icon in the Start menu then Pin to Taskbar?

Click to expand...

Nope, unfortunately didn't work. I can't believe how simple yet frustrating a problem this is. Why won't it just open??

I forgot to ask or assumed, does Chrome open correctly from the Start menu? If not it may need reinstalling. Before making a change might use Task Manager to End Task on all Chrome or Google entries.

Berton said:

I forgot to ask or assumed, does Chrome open correctly from the Start menu? If not it may need reinstalling. Before making a change might use Task Manager to End Task on all Chrome or Google entries.

Click to expand...

No it doesn't start correctly any way...and that's just the thing, even when I close Chrome and verify it's not on the task manager, I still get that message "Please close all Google Chrome windows and try again" when I try to remove it....I've checked and double checked, rebooted, and so on. Somehow it seems like the solution is simpler than it seems but I just can't put my finger on it.


edit: Well, I got it ended in the task manager (chrome.exe) and now it's working since I re-installed it. I truly would like to know why this happened in case anyone knows. I'd prefer not to have to re-install next time. Could it maybe be a bug with an extension like ABP or my multiple tab refresher?

I assume you've uninstalled Chrome and re-installed it? Nevermind I see you have