Chrome Story

“He’s Dead Jim” on Google Chrome Is Not A Virus

He’s Dead Jim – Did this page suddenly show up on your computer screen? Was it on a Google Chrome tab? Don’t worry, its not a virus. It is just an error message to let you know that the tab has crashed. Or, in other words, the tab has stopped working. In most cases, you can reload the tab. If that does not work, close the tab and open the same website in another tab.

Google, especially the Chrome team is known for its witty error messages. The error message that you see when Chrome is offline, the dinosaur, is a game that you can play while waiting for the internet connection to come back. There are many other funny examples of this trend.

I know that many of you didn’t enjoy, and I see that in your comments and there are many who seems to be surprised, and enjoyed and loved this error message. Do you have a story to share? I see many such stories every day. Take a look at the comments on this page, and you will see many people complaining about how Google got them confused.

“He’s dead, Jim!” is a catchphrase used by Leonard H. McCoy, a character from Star Trek, just to remind you.

“He’s Dead Jim” on Google Chrome- Is Not A Virus

The message continues: “Something caused this page to be killed, either because the operating system ran out of memory, or for some other reason. To continue, press Reload or go to another page.”

To see the page, just type about:kill in the address bar after opening a new tab. Here is the official description of this error page, from Google.

Issue

You may see the “He’s Dead, Jim!” message if the operating system has terminated the tab’s process due to a lack of memory. Computers rely on memory to run programs. Low amounts of memory can cause programs to run slowly or stop running altogether.

Alternatively, if you terminated the process using Google Chrome’s Task Manager, the system’s task manager, or with a command-line tool, this message will appear as well.

Solution

Reload the page to continue. If the message continues to appear, try closing inactive tabs or other programs to free up more memory.

Curious about the title? “He’s dead, Jim!” is a reference from Star Trek to describe things that are unresponsive. Learn more about “He’s dead, Jim!”

So, nothing to worry about there. A tab crashed. Restart the tab, or if that does not work, restart Chrome. If this behavior continues even after restarting Chrome, go ahead and try the incognito mode. CTRL + SHIFT + N opens an incognito window. In this mode, you are using Chrome without any extensions. If you are not seeing the problem in this mode, that means one of your extensions is to blame. Disable all of them and enable them one by one, testing.

In

101 responses to ““He’s Dead Jim” on Google Chrome Is Not A Virus”

  1. Amber

    Ok now I am LAUGHING. I had just done a thorough cleaning of my pc, but am getting and applied some Microsoft Updates. Was afraid that one or the other had caused this msg, or a virus had gotten past my security.

    I like the message. now that I know what it is… LOL

    Reply
  2. Sunil Patwal

    Good one.. I saw it 2-3 times in last week. after I saw it today again, I got suspicious about some virus script running and also most of the processes were killed in the task manager. I remembered He’s dead Jim and searched Google to find any virus attack. But found this naughty thing of Google.
    Good one..

    Reply
  3. riremakar
    Dragon

    Ok, this is creepy as hell and completely true. Watching a Slender Man vid – nothing special, just another Slender vid. This one had audio of a child crying and looking for something, shouting an unintelligible name.
    Loud noise happens.
    Then all I have time to process is the words “He’s Dead” and the face.
    My computer shuts completely down, and reboots automatically.
    Nothing changed, still unable to get the reason for the random restart.
    Only thing odd was I recieved an exception with this error:
    http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/io/EOFException.html
    I don’t know what to make of it, but I am going to have a fun time trying to fall asleep tonight…

    Reply
  4. Dash Dinosaur

    When google chrome said he’s dead jim my computer shut down afterwards…….
    now it won’t start up again.

    Reply
  5. Kat

    Where actually watching the Paranormal Activity Simpson episode when my boyfriend when this happened. It was a little creepy we must admit. Then we were like “Wanna know the truth or live with the mystery?” So we decided to Google it instead. And well, now I’m here writing about it xD

    Reply
  6. irving712014
    irvin

    You give my daughter the 90 bucks it took her to have her supposed computer fixed when she took it in to see what it was and the guy told her it was a virus only found on google. She got it fixed thinking i was going to get mad when I found out that she was on my laptop.
    Not funny

    Reply
  7. Carisse
    Haha

    Morons… Morons everywhere! How can people be this stupid! It’s fun though, to read people’s reactions.

    Reply
  8. robertrkhayat
    Robert

    For anyone fooled by this or who took this too seriously…a simple search of “hes dead jim” shows this…

    http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1270364

    Finding it funny that people thought it was a virus, I’m sorry to hear about people’s loved ones.

    Reply
  9. Melissa

    After looking through a couple comments here I just had to laugh lol okay on that note; I was on Facebook when I received this message it shut down my computer I quickly plugged it in and guess what I did what anyone who is a computer user would do and Google it to see if I should be concerned, guess not lol Love this its silly Everyone should just get over it some people have too much time on their hands and really are looking to far into things lol

    Reply
  10. sophie

    when this first happened on my laptop my father was using it , his name is Jim .
    we all took this quite seriously as his best friends father only died 2 days before .

    Reply
  11. mary k

    NOT FUNNY !!!! GET RID OF IT !!!!

    Reply
  12. emily

    I loved that error message when i got it- i am a huge fan of all things star trek and although i’m probably not a super fan or a Trekkie yet, i automatically knew where it was from. You can’t kill the guy with a bullet, the red suits die in star trek usually by a phaser (although some die by guns).

    Reply
  13. James

    If people don’t want to see this error they can either;

    1. shut chrome down properly.
    2.use a different browser

    I’m not saying this can’t be offensive but this is a reference used alot in today’s society.

    Reply
  14. danielbaker5
    Daniel Baker

    No, this isn’t a place for childish developers to make a joke. The display is totally insensitive plus not thinking of the breadth of the audience.

    Reply
  15. duncan

    so we are on the first episode of 24’s fifth season. if youre familiar, in the first fifteen minutes they kill off three of the previous seasons main characters. one of the living tells another living “he’s dead” they respond, “hes dead?.” my wife whom was not quite watching says HE’S DEAD?!” the blue screen pops up, “HE’S DEAD JIM” shivers run up my spine and am expecting a knock on the door and a big boom. whoah.

    Reply
  16. Lisa

    I was on Facebook when the he’s dead message came up the computer then turned itself off so I left it went to use it the next day and the computer doesn’t work I would appreciate some help

    Reply
  17. CC

    Not funny if this messages crops up whilst your young son is doing research for a school project (and you have briefly left his side so cannot see the exact message).
    8-year-olds don’t necessarily know about viruses or Star Trek… (- and re the latter, neither do I!)

    Reply
  18. Fran

    I’m in my 60’s and He’s dead Jim really freaked me out…my husbands name is Jim! Thankfully for me my daughter is a tech and figured it out for me…

    Reply
  19. Doc

    The trouble is I closed my PC with google open, saw the image for less then a second having just enough time to register the ominous words “he’s dead” and some sort of skull like icon before my windows started to update.

    I pulled all the plugs and wasted hours backdating my computer and installing fresh virus software and performing a deep scan.

    Yeah I think it’s well f’kin funny and cute.
    I feel I’m entitled the same time I wasted in pummeling the face of the smart arse at Google who thought this was clever.

    Reply
  20. Peggy

    message showed up and freaked me out. My husbands name is Jim and he died….not long ago

    Reply
  21. Sam

    hello i have a computer that suddenly says hes dead jim and then it shuts down for no reason it does it every hour or something and help how can i fix this.

    Reply
  22. Amber

    Not funny. It scared my daughter. Who was trying to play a game on a website.

    Reply
  23. CockMaster

    I was watching porn when the porn star was about to take three long schlongs in all three holes this error message popped up. It was right my jimmy was dead.

    Reply
  24. bobbydias

    Not an error- Chrome shows He’s dead Jim when the user ends a tab or shuts off the computer with one or more tabs shill showing- probably some smart *ss Google employee showing frustration of those computer users who do not bother shutting down Chrome’s tabs before shutting down the computer. Ignore that smart *ss, save time by shutting off the computer period.

    Reply
    1. Zann

      So will this issue be resolved when the other computer is shut down?
      or the issue lingers forever?

      Reply
      1. bobbydias

        No, the issue will be resolved when Google admits it is good for Google(Chrome) to be shut down. Why should Google make the user(client) look to be bad?

  25. Honey singh

    i am getting the same from a last few days.I have tried everthing.i reset,i uninstalled & install again.but again getting the same.Its very hectic to reload web pages again & again.Please google fix this.

    Reply
    1. Rina Sato Undalok

      Did you reset the settings in your browser then restarted the browser again?

      Reply
      1. Honey singh

        Its working fine now & thank you for your reply.

  26. Azizuddin Pirani

    Have same problem now to get to gmail I have use explorer
    Can any one help

    Reply
  27. Matty Welch

    That was a stupid message to put up. Almost had a heart attack, juggling too many issues as it is to worry about some damn virus wiping out my computer. Very very bad idea.

    Reply
  28. galacticcannibal

    I cannot fix the error “he’s Dead Jim” Why is it happening and how do I fix it. Just 2 simple answers please . And not the usual long winded fuckin shit given out most of the time.

    Reply
    1. Jody James Cicchitello

      lol..there is no fix..just reload he page..

      Reply
      1. Lillith

        now seriously, Google Chrome: would you please change this
        cheap jokelethal curse
        into some more tactful wording?
        thank you!

  29. Lillith

    my gosh, i was sure it’s the Jim Morison and 27 Club conspiracy… taken to serve at the heavenly kingdom… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMhNo03dZdE

    Reply
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