April 2018 update broke Chrome browser (Cryptographic Services bug)

Anonymous
2018-08-13T22:50:55+00:00

I updated to the April 2018 version of Win10 a couple months ago. It caused several issues and broke my Chrome browser completely, so I reverted back to the old version. But Microsoft forced another update on me, so I need this issue fixed somehow.

All the googling I've done says Microsoft has "fixed" this issue with the April update breaking Chrome, but I've installed all patches and they clearly haven't, not in my case. Pages simply refuse to load and time out.

I've narrowed the issue down to the "Cryptographic Services" service. If I stop the service, all of the Chrome pages instantly load and I have no issues for about an hour. It seems to be some sort of issue with certificates/SSL.

The problem is the service keeps restarting itself. I've tried setting it to "disabled," tried unchecking the service in System Configuration, nothing works. It always comes back and Chrome breaks. I'm sure there's good reason to keep it running but I'm not going to let Microsoft force me out of my favorite browser/bookmarks/extensions/etc. like this, and I can't keep stopping a service every hour just to browse the web.

So I need a solution please. And something specifically related to fixing the issue with Cryptographic Services preventing SSL on Chrome. I've done all the basic stuff like reinstalling Chrome, checking firewall settings, etc..

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Internet and connectivity

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

165 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T18:40:06+00:00

    So basically the only issue was some f**** up information in the Root folder of systemCertificates... I've had this issue for quite a while now, that some launchers such as game launchers, Upwork, Timeular tracker and also Chrome didn't work... Shutting down the Cryptographic Service helps , but since I also got random freezes because of this, it was REALLY annoying to occasionally click the batch file to end the service because you could never know when it will occur again. What I realized is, that sometimes it helped to unplug a harddrive and plug it back in when a freeze occured. But the recreation of the registry folder indeed seemed to fix it. Incredible. Thank you so much!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T17:32:30+00:00

    The trouble with that fix is that I was not then able to open device manager etc. and actually had to go back to a restore point to get things working again.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T17:28:46+00:00

    I'm sorry to say I can't answer that question, mostly because I have no expert knowledge. Mine is a new computer which I've built and is still having teething problems. I had no problems with Chrome or audit failures on my old machine. 

    My build is 1809 which took a very long time to install and looking at the registry around Root and cryptographic services it contains errors that Windows actually flags up as not being in the right order.

    Terrible quality control.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T15:55:20+00:00

    Is it possible that this issue is related to another issue I am having on Win 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1803) regarding Cryptograhpic stuff?

    On every reboot, in Event Viewer, I get two AUDIT FAILURES related to Cryptographic Operations.

    See my detailed description at  https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/audit-failures-every-reboot-event-5061/c0e627e7-f000-4353-a6f8-e03e90f1b0e8

    Please scroll down a bit to get past the early stock useless answers. 

    (I don't use Chrome so I haven't noticed.) 

    If you are still having the problem on Chrome on Win 10, please let me know whether you see any similar Audit Failures in Event Viewer after your reboot.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2019-05-09T15:23:32+00:00

    Manovegas' trick seems to have worked so far.

    "Go to Cryptographic services, right click to properties, and in the "Log on" tab, change the setting to local account. Restarted and Chrome was good as ever."

    Thanks all

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments