I experienced my first Chromebook crash this afternoon.

Right in the middle of browsing Facebook, the system locked up, the screen went black, and the device rebooted itself. Thanks to the wonders of cloud computing and the Chromebook’s speedy 16GB SSD, I was back online within 10 seconds. However, the lack of visible error reporting concerned me.

There was no pop-up to explain what had happened. No offer to send a bug report to Google. Nothing. Instead, I received a yellow ticker tape warning that Chrome did not shutdown correctly and an offer to reopen the tabs that had been lost as a result.

Mac has hidden errors from the user for a long time. But, as a Windows convert, I’m used to the detailed error report that accompanies any system crash. Google’s Chromebook takes many cues from Apple’s Macbook Air (most notably the design, keyboard and portability benefits) but this is a feature that I’m not a fan of.

According to the following Google group discussion, the crashing problem can be rectified by removing the Adblock extension. And if that doesn’t work, a factory reset is also an option. As I’ve only experienced this problem once, though, I don’t feel the need to try this just yet.

I’ve had my Chromebook almost a month now and this is the first major fault. The rest of the experience has been almost flawless, so I’m hopeful that this was a one-off. That said, I’d feel much happier if error reporting was made more accessible, in case this problem becomes a recurring theme.

Oh, and for those who are interested, the lack of Netflix support is still an issue. Apparently there’s a fix on the way, but it’s still a little while off.