Edge and Chrome intermittently will not start when attempted, reboot is workaround
Hello all! Thanks so much for any time and insight you can provide. I've been losing my mind for at least 6 months over this nagging issue.
I take care of 150+ Windows 10 PCs for our users here, and a growing number of them experience an intermittent issue where seemingly out of nowhere, after no common actions taken, they won't be able to start edge or chrome without rebooting their PC. There are no instances of either one left in task manager to end, they just don't start.
In event viewer, there is a kernelbase.dll 1000 error for each time it fails to load: Faulting application name: msedge.exe, version: 111.0.1661.44, time stamp: 0x64126858 Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.2728, time stamp: 0xe7e53a4e Exception code: 0xc0000409 Fault offset: 0x0000000000036588 Faulting process id: 0x3974 Faulting application start time: 0x01d95cbcbb64e35b Faulting application path: C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application\\msedge.exe Faulting module path: C:\\Windows\\System32\\KERNELBASE.dll Report Id: 4fd92b0d-3a2e-40aa-a8e9-ac148d2204af
The two known versions of Windows 10 experiencing this are 22H2 - 10.0.19045.2728 and 10.0.19045.2604. Potentially more, but these are the ones I've heard from. I've taken a close look and I have the very same 22H2 - 10.0.19045.2604 version but don't experience the issue, so it doesn't seem related to O.S. version.
The error has occurred on Dell Precision Laptops: 7560, 7670 & 7770... I really doubt the hardware is related at all, but i7-i9s, 16 GB RAM, SSD, High end Nvidia RTX GPUs
We have isolated the issue to the O.S. or PC itself by reproducing the issue outside our firewall and with A.V. temporarily turned off.
Things I have tried already:
Turning off SmartScreen for edge after finding a similar issue reported here two years ago, when that was the workaround: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/mvh7a5/updates\_broke\_edge/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/mvh7a5/updates_broke_edge/)
Hard resetting both Chrome and Edge in safe mode
Reinstalling Chrome Cleanly
Repairing Edge
Uninstalling Edge Webview2 Runtime
Clearing Cache and Resetting settings to default for both browsers
Copying and recreating the Chrome user default folder
Deleting the local package edge folders
Running DISM commands and SFC Scan
Winsock reset commands
Checking for extensions, removing any existing
Checking registry for known buggy edge keys to remove (none existed)
Copying chrome.exe shortcut to desktop to use as the new shortcut
Setting the shortcuts to run in compatibility mode for win8, troubleshooting compatibility, setting it to run as admin
Trying commands **regsvr32 /u KernelBase.dll or regsvr32 /i KernelBase.dll** (I honestly don't understand why this is suggested online, every single person replies saying they get the same error message I do when they try to run it, which is "The module KernelBase.dll" was loaded but the entry-point DllUnregisterServer was not found. Make sure that "KernelBase.dll" is a valid DLL or OCX file and then try again.
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The one thing I haven't tried, as I've heard it isn't advisable, is copying the kernelbase.dll from a known working PC with the exact same O.S. version. I'm willing to try that at this point, I'm at my wit's end. Just figured I'd check if anyone has solved this before or has anything I've missed to try.
Thanks again!
\-Desperate Redditor