Windows 7 Taskbar "Combine When Full" performs flaky with Google Chrome

[Erich]

Particularly I'm noticing the issue with my Google Chrome icon the most.

 

I have most of my shortcuts as icons in the taskbar. I have my "taskbar buttons" options set at "Combine when full", which I really like. It'll turn the icon into a stretched out, highlighted, taskbar rectangle when the application is running... but for some reason, google chrome will sometimes just create the application task without combining onto the shortcut I just used to run the app. When this happens, it keeps re-happening and clicking the shortcut again won't switch to some magic window, it'll just keep creating new windows.

 

I'm not sure if a reboot would solve the issue, but for now, I find if I just recreate the shortcut, it fixes it until the next time the problem starts reappearing.

 

It's mostly just a cosmetic issue, but my OCD is quite annoyed by it. I haven't noticed this happening with any other applications yet besides google chrome....... but I'm sure given the right set of circumstances, other apps could do it too. Autocad, IE, my Microsoft Office products, VLC, and some other stuff, all combine with the shortcut 100% of the time as they should. Anybody got any ideas?

[pratnala]

Could you put a screenshot please?

[ditoax]

Could be the automatic update built into Chrome. When it updates it does so transparently so if you have a couple of Windows open with version X and it gets updated in the background to version Y when you open a new window it will run a different executable (it doesn't replace the older version instead it keeps the last version or two around for backup) and so the taskbar will thinking it is a different application and give it a separate icon. That is what it sounds like to me anyway.

[Erich]

 

Here's a screen shot. IE open for contrast.

 

It's the second time it's happened this morning already.

 

It seems odd to me that re-creating the shortcut would fix the problem temporarily if it's an issue with a background thread running.

[Erich]

Also, checking my running processes. It doesn't appear as if there are any other chromes running that didn't get shut down properly when I closed the application.

[Erich]

Investigating further: the only thing that stood out for the google chrome shortcut, versus all the other shortcuts, was that google chrome had several "previous version" restore points. Whereas all my other shortcuts had none.

 

So I disabled system protection. Will report back over the next 24 hours how that performs.

 

Nope, herpa-derp.

 

Problem reoccurred quickly. Damn you google chrome!!!