General Question

xTheDreamer's avatar

Why can't I open an html file in Google Chrome?

Asked by xTheDreamer (897points) November 9th, 2011

For school we had to make a website based off html codes etc and I tried to open it in Google Chrome, which is my default browser, but it didn’t open in Chrome at all. I tried Firefox and Safari and it did open on those browsers. I’ve saved my file as index.html

So how come I can’t open in in Chrome? What can I do to make it open on there when I double click on the file(easier).

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14 Answers

tom_g's avatar

Could you elaborate? Are you double-clicking the html file? If so, does Chrome launch? What methods do you use to view the file in IE or FF?

xTheDreamer's avatar

@tom_g I made an html file in textwrangler and saved it as index.html.
When I double click the file to open it, it doesn’t open in Chrome.
Chrome doesn’t even launch.
To open it in FireFox and Safari I just right click the file, open with Safari/FireFox.

tom_g's avatar

What if you try right-clicking and opening in Chrome?

You probably need to set the default app to open .html files. Try…

- right-click
– open with
– “choose program”
– select Chrome
– click the checkbox that says “always use the selected program”
– click ok

xTheDreamer's avatar

@tom_g Yea, I forgot to mention I even tried to right click and select Chrome. It didn’t even work.

How do I set Chrome to be able to open .html files?

tom_g's avatar

@xTheDreamer: “How do I set Chrome to be able to open .html files?”

- right-click
– open with
– “choose program”
– select Chrome
– click the checkbox that says “always use the selected program”
– click ok

However, you explicitly chose Chrome and it still “didn’t work”. Do you mean that Chrome opened but it appeared to be blank? If so, I suspect that it is in fact opening the file, but that there may be a piece of html in the file keeping it from rendering the file properly.

If you explicitly chose Chrome and Chrome didn’t launch, then wow – that’s definitely strange. Can you launch Chrome and browse the web right now? Is it possible that one of the following is true?...

- check to see if you have an instance of the Chrome browser open. Maybe your html file is merely opening in another tab.
– go to task manager (ctrl-alt-delete) and check for rogue Chrome processes still running. Make sure they are closed before trying again.

xTheDreamer's avatar

@tom_g I’ve followed your instructions on how to open .html file in Chrome and it didn’t work.
Also, I mean it didn’t work as in I double clicked and it launched the browser but the file itself didn’t open in the browser(I’m using mac btw).
I’ve checked my html file several times if I’m missing anything in there but everything is correct in my file.
I’ve checked in my other Chrome browsers if I have it launched there but nothing.

tom_g's avatar

Will it open this? Create a test.html and try this….

<html>
<body>
fluther is amazing
</body>
</html>

CWOTUS's avatar

Try opening Chrome first, and then in the address box entering the path to your index.html file as:

file:///[drive]:/[path]/index.html

xTheDreamer's avatar

@tom_g Strange, it does open that but not the other.
@CWOTUS Thanks, that worked too.

tom_g's avatar

Cool. So we know that it must be some invalid html that Chrome will not render, but IE and FF will. This will be a fun hands-on lesson in cross-browser development!

Post the file somewhere if you want us to take a look.

xTheDreamer's avatar

@tom_g Thanks for the help! But I found an extension for Chrome that will render the html codes. Apparently Chrome doesn’t render some html codes so after installing that extension it will now open in Chrome. Thanks again!

tom_g's avatar

Great news. I’m really curious, however. You shouldn’t have to install an extension to get Chrome to render valid HTML. What wasn’t working in Chrome?

Vincentt's avatar

…and what extension did you install?

xTheDreamer's avatar

@vincent LocalLinks

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