Fixing Google Drive Sync (googledrivesync.exe) Problems.

Add another one on the WTF list. Had a client who is using Google Apps for Business and uses Drive for all their storage. One of the workstations stopped syncing, as google drive sync (googledrivesync.exe) would apparently never start.

You'd get the spinning Windows 7 circle, but then the icon would never appear in the systray.

Or so I thought....

I tried everything to get it to work again, reinstalling, running it in -vv (diagnostics) and --unsafe-network modes. No dice. It would start then exit.

Nothing at all in the Event Logs.

This was a Windows 7 Pro 64-bit install with plenty of memory and CPU power.

I created another user, logged in, and voila' - the icon in the systray appeared and asked me to login.

So this was a user profile issue.

So I went and logged back in as the trouble user, I went to the Taskbar options and hit the customize button so I could force all systray icons to appear. This is when I noticed that Google Drive Sync was in the systray icon list! The icon was invisible, but it was on the list and the text said "Shutting down..."

Only it never shut down. Couldn't find the process to get it to shut down either.

So I  deleted the registry key folder "Drive" in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\

I then ran Revo Uninstaller - a product that has cleaned up after several poorly written uninstallers. I ran it in "advanced" uninstall mode.

I then removed any trace of the googledrivesync installer on the computer. I then rebooted, logged into the users Google account in Chrome, went to Drive and downloaded and installed the Drive app for the PC.

It ran, started, and everything worked fine.

Note that all the files on the computer remained, and it re-synced with all the files on drive just fine. There were a few conflicts, but it created separate files for those.

Hope this helps!