This just seems like a race between Chrome creating the profile directory, and crashpad starting.

Deleting the %appdatalocal%\google\chrome\user data directory and re-running Chrome causes crashpad not to start.

Crashpad starts fine as long as there is a directory (it can be empty) called %appdatalocal%\google\chrome\user data

I finally got around to trying this just now and I couldn't repro (New win7 VM, installing Canary). Without having debugged yet, I feel like there's not a race, because I think we're still single threaded at this point, and the browser launches the handler and then blocks until it's connected to. So I think the directory either exists or doesn't.

I'll try a few more configs. Maybe it depends on whether the install was system or user too.

OK, seems to happen reliably with Stable. :/

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/92905ef36a30be9be9041d8ee07ccd6e7ca45d64

commit 92905ef36a30be9be9041d8ee07ccd6e7ca45d64
Author: scottmg <scottmg@chromium.org>
Date: Mon Mar 07 23:00:43 2016

crashpad win: Ensure database dir exists on first run

Crashpad will only create one level of directory for its database
storage. On Windows, the target is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User
Data\Crashpad.

However, on first run when Crashpad is initialized, "User Data" will not
yet have been created. We don't want to move Crashpad initialization
later in startup, so we instead create the directory if it does not
exist.

Note that this is calling file_util::CreateDirectory(), rather than
CreateDirectoryW() which means the full parent tree will be created, not
just the last entry in the path.

R=thakis@chromium.org,wfh@chromium.org
TEST=remove local user data dir, install chrome, confirm that chrome --process-type=crashpad-handler exists on first run
BUG= 591504 

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/1774573002

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#379676}

[modify] https://crrev.com/92905ef36a30be9be9041d8ee07ccd6e7ca45d64/chrome/common/chrome_paths_win.cc

I think we probably ought to try to merge this back unfortunately.

Merge approved for M49 (branch 2623)

Your change meets the bar and is auto-approved for M50 (branch: 2661)

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/de5a07178265d61dce571d65f6c6b2d06cb97bdf

commit de5a07178265d61dce571d65f6c6b2d06cb97bdf
Author: Scott Graham <scottmg@chromium.org>
Date: Tue Mar 08 22:14:08 2016

crashpad win: Ensure database dir exists on first run

Crashpad will only create one level of directory for its database
storage. On Windows, the target is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User
Data\Crashpad.

However, on first run when Crashpad is initialized, "User Data" will not
yet have been created. We don't want to move Crashpad initialization
later in startup, so we instead create the directory if it does not
exist.

Note that this is calling file_util::CreateDirectory(), rather than
CreateDirectoryW() which means the full parent tree will be created, not
just the last entry in the path.

R=thakis@chromium.org,wfh@chromium.org
TEST=remove local user data dir, install chrome, confirm that chrome --process-type=crashpad-handler exists on first run
BUG= 591504 

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/1774573002

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#379676}
(cherry picked from commit 92905ef36a30be9be9041d8ee07ccd6e7ca45d64)

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/1781443003 .

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/branch-heads/2661@{#134}
Cr-Branched-From: ef6f6ae5e4c96622286b563658d5cd62a6cf1197-refs/heads/master@{#378081}

[modify] https://crrev.com/de5a07178265d61dce571d65f6c6b2d06cb97bdf/chrome/common/chrome_paths_win.cc

Please try to merge your change to M49 branch 2623 ASAP if you think it is a safe merge so we can pick it up for next stable refresh when it happens. Thank you.

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/4a5c529d37e17c3ea7def8aa7de2507a5548d84d

commit 4a5c529d37e17c3ea7def8aa7de2507a5548d84d
Author: Scott Graham <scottmg@chromium.org>
Date: Fri Mar 11 18:42:14 2016

crashpad win: Ensure database dir exists on first run

Crashpad will only create one level of directory for its database
storage. On Windows, the target is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User
Data\Crashpad.

However, on first run when Crashpad is initialized, "User Data" will not
yet have been created. We don't want to move Crashpad initialization
later in startup, so we instead create the directory if it does not
exist.

Note that this is calling file_util::CreateDirectory(), rather than
CreateDirectoryW() which means the full parent tree will be created, not
just the last entry in the path.

R=thakis@chromium.org,wfh@chromium.org
TEST=remove local user data dir, install chrome, confirm that chrome --process-type=crashpad-handler exists on first run
BUG= 591504 

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/1774573002

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#379676}
(cherry picked from commit 92905ef36a30be9be9041d8ee07ccd6e7ca45d64)

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/1790493003 .

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/branch-heads/2623@{#613}
Cr-Branched-From: 92d77538a86529ca35f9220bd3cd512cbea1f086-refs/heads/master@{#369907}

[modify] https://crrev.com/4a5c529d37e17c3ea7def8aa7de2507a5548d84d/chrome/common/chrome_paths_win.cc