Chrome Web Store problems

One of the great features of Google's Chrome web browser is the way that it can be enhanced by adding extensions. One of the reasons why Firefox has grabbed such a large market share from Internet Explorer is because if the huge range of add-ons and extensions. Chrome is catching up fast, both in terms of extensions available and market share. Perhaps the two are related in some way, who knows?

Finding and installing extensions for Chrome is very easy and Google has built an online store. Just click the spanner icon in the top right corner and select Tools, Extensions. Then there's a link to go to the store. Well, store isn't quite the right word because most extensions are free. You just browse the categories, find one you like and click the button to install it. It's a piece of cake, or is it?

It is not hard to find people having problems accessing the Chrome Web Store though and some people have the curious problem of the images not displaying. The text is fine, but most or even all the images just appear as broken link icons. If you manage to browse the store and find something you want (even though you can't see it), clicking the install link fails to install it. You just get a message stating that the app is currently unreachable.

If you search the web for this error message you will find other people with the same problem. Many people offer solutions in forums and help pages, but they rarely work or they worked for one author and not
for anyone else.

I had this Chrome Web Store problem for weeks and tried some of the suggested fixes, but none of them helped. One thing that did work though, was to clear Chrome's cache, Click the spanner, Tools, Clear browsing data. Restarting Chrome and going straight to the store afterwards then enabled it to work, but only briefly. Just enough time to grab an extension. I installed Chrome in a virtual machine running Vista and the Chrome web store worked straight off. However, it soon stopped working. Perhaps it briefly worked because the cache was empty and when it was full it stopped. It's weird.

There are reports of people having this problem and they find it suddenly fixes itself. I had this. It wasn't working for weeks, then one day I tried it and it worked perfectly. It is still working. I didn't change any settings, install any software or do anything special. One day it just started working. I don't know what the problem is or how to fix it and no-one else seems to either. Just keep clearing the cache and trying it each day. One day it will work.