If you've been having trouble searching with Google Chrome today, know that you're not alone. Many of our staff have been experiencing an issue where entering searches from the omnibox (the combined address bar and search field up top) returns nothing more than a blank white page, and judging by comments on Twitter the problem seems to be widespread.

Anyone else having search problems with #Chrome? — Aaron Barrett (@barrettradio) July 3, 2012

Searching from Google's homepage works fine, however, and the omnibox can still be used to access previously visited pages. It looks like the problem is related to instant search, as disabling that feature in the settings panel seems to solve the issue for most. Deleting the blank.html text from the URL should take you to the proper results page too. We're also only seeing the issue on desktop versions of Chrome (Mac, PC, and even Chrome OS), with the Android and iOS apps apparently unaffected. We've reached out to Google for comment and will let you know if we hear anything back.

Update: Google got back to us to say that it's looking into the issue — we'll be sure to keep you posted.

"Oops, pardon our cobwebs. The team is aware of an issue affecting search in Chrome and we're working to fix as soon as possible. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

Update 2: Google says it has fixed the issue "for most users," and everything seems to be working fine on our end now. Let us know if you're still having problems.

"The issue that was affecting search in Chrome should be resolved for most users. The next order of business is figuring out the cause, and making sure it doesn't happen again. Thanks for hanging with us through the rough patch."



