Open and Close on launch Windows 11

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Description of the issue: 3 Profiles of Windows 11 Users on same Laptop - 1 User cannot open Brave

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.

My Windows Profile and Wife’s Windows profile have Brave working without issue. Son’s profile will not launch and remain open (read several topics about this, followed many instructions see below) without changing to brave1 for the exe (which ruins Wife and my accounts links to the application)

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):

Brave Version 1.81.135

Windows 11 Home

Version 24H2

OS Build 26100.4946

Additional Information:

Read topics related to Games and anti cheat software. Chrome and Brave will not open on son’s profile so I went down this topic to try and fix it. Deleted all games specific to his profile in windows (Steam library is nearly the same for his brother on another windows machine that has no problems opening brave so I deleted all games that were dissimilar). Restarted machine, reinstalled Brave, still fails to open. Only way to get Brave to launch is to change the exe to anything added to the name of the exe (brave1.exe).

Read topic related to GPU acceleration, incognito etc and tried all variants of changing the options for open with “- xxx” commands added to the desktop link. All suggested variants failed.

Looked at crash logs on his profile, no crash logs.

Not sure what else to do, edge works on his profile as the only browser currently.

2

@aronvorn

Something is possibly corrupted, within your son’s Brave Browser user profile’s associated profile folder. Or, possibly corrupted elsewhere.

But, I am uncertain about your description, so I am going to rewrite it:

  1. Using my Windows OS computer (a laptop), running Brave Browser v1.81.135
  2. I have set up 3 Brave Browser user profiles. They are:
  • BB user profile name “Profile 1” associated with folder named “Default” ← for me
  • BB user profile name “Profile 2” associated with folder named “Profile 1” ← for my wife
  • BB user profile name “Profile 3” associated with folder named “Profile 2” ← for my son

And those 3 folders are located at:

  • C:\Users\[your_username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\ ← me
  • C:\Users\[your_username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Profile 1\ ← wife
  • C:\Users\[your_username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Profile 2\ ← son

That is the general orientation, organization, that in my humble opinion, will guide you to figure out, where exactly your son’s Brave Browser user profile data is actually stored.

Given that your profile works, and your wife’s profile works, I suggest, in order to verify:

  1. Using YOUR Brave Browser user profile, go to: brave://version and scroll down to the Profile Path . . . and record the name of the last folder.
  2. Using YOUR WIFE’s Brave Browser user profile, go to: brave://version and scroll down to the Profile Path . . . and record the name of the last folder.

That leaves whatever is the the 3rd folder, as most probably being your son’s Brave Browser user data container. PLEASE Locate that folder and back up that folder. Also, back up the User Data folder:

C:\Users\[your_username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\

Because, you can create a new Brave Browser user profile (and thus, its associated profile folder) for your son, and probably succeed at (with Brave Browser NOT running), copying his old Bookmarks file from the his old profile folder . . . to his new profile folder.

When you create that new Brave Browser user profile for your son, DO NOT import anything, and DO NOT yet include Brave’s “bells and whistles” such as “Brave Rewards,” “Brave Talk,” etc. Because, the idea is to have Brave Browser running and your son having a fresh start with his new Brave Browser user profile.

IF wondering about your son’s passwords, the Login Data file is located at:

  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\[profile_folder_name]\Login Data

You might get lucky, copying that file also, to the new profile folder, and by a miracle, son also recovered his passwords.

3

@289Wk,

Thanks for this breakdown. Much better presentation than what I thought I was trying convey.

I went on each windows user profile and verified the brave://version with the profile paths

  • C:\Users\[Me]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default

    C:\Users\[Wife]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default

    C:\Users\[Son]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default

Then I followed the next set of instructions to try and find the BB user profiles.

However, I never setup separate Brave Browser profiles. All I did was open the application on each Windows User Profile. So, there is no other user folder than Default in this path

  • C:\Users\[your_username]\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\

As to anything related to saving user profile information for my son, there is nothing to be saved; passwords, urls, etc. so I have no problem with a standard fresh install for a default new user on his Windows User profile for Brave.

I hope this helps clarify the situation a little better and possibly find a path to a solution to fix it.

Thank you!

4

@aronvorn

Thanks for the clarification. Please take a look at / study:

‘https://community.brave.com/t/brave-crash-every-time/626949/2’

After studying all that, then Restart computer and sign on, using son’s Windows user account. Apply the procedures, in order to get Brave Browser running . . . and then attend to crash reporting.

5

Ok, I’m at my wits end here.

I followed the instructions on sons profile of windows in regards to the following path editing instructions.

During the many attempts at figuring out if I needed to change %USERPROFILE% or not I got an incognito version of brave to open and it was pointing to brave_console_out.txt with nothing on the page nor a file created on the desktop. I closed all open tabs/windows of Brave and tried to open it again (I think this is where it threw it as I had a window open using brave1.exe to read these instructions to edit the path correctly before changing it back to brave.exe to get the error to generate). I’ve tried duplicating the steps I took but haven’t been able to get that incognito tab to open with it pointing to the txt again.

Now, I don’t know if this is an issue with everyone’s favorite Microsoft “cram this down everyone’s throats” OneDrive problem but the path of %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\brave_console_out.txt doesn’t match the path of C:\Users\WINDOWSUSERNAME\OneDrive\Desktop for the Desktop as the Desktop folder is not under \WINDOWSUSERNAME\ its under \WINDOWSUSERNAME\OneDrive\ :: at least on my machine.

I also ran brave://crashes on both my windows profile and my sons windows profile with no crashes to report.

Thank you for your patience and help in this!

6

Just to make sure I understand correctly – your family all share the same PC. Everyone (you, wife, son) have a separate Windows profile that you login to to use the PC. Brave will launch/run on your Windows profile and your wife’s but not your son’s.

When your son logs in and launches Brave, how quickly does the browser close itself? No error messages of any kind when it closes?

Is your son able to right-click on the Brave launch icon and select a specific profile to open? If he does this and selects his own profile (which appears to be Prof 3 according to one of your previous replies) does this make any difference?

7

Correct

Originally 1 sec open and close. Now with the edits to the link for incognito etc, it doesn’t even flash open.

EDIT: I restarted again and with the current link edited to do the error reporting, it flashed open close 1 sec.

Not able to right click and select a specific profile.

Only way to have brave open on his windows profile is to change the brave.exe to anything but that (typically I just throw a 1 before the .exe)

8

@aronvorn have you tried un/reinstalling the browser? It may be worth trying as a reinstall could clear whatever bad data is causing this issue.

Note that when you go to do this via Add/remove programs on Win 11, you’ll be prompted and asked whether you want to delete the associated browsing data as well – make sure you do not check the box, otherwise all your profile/browsing data will be cleared as well.

Let me know if this makes any difference for you.

9

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