Getting "Google Chrome didn't shut down correctly" every week

I am getting "Google Chrome didn't shut down correctly" twice a week - it becomes a very annoying problem -
I always fixed this issue by removing the chrome's default user profile and re-opening the chrome, but doing this will remove all my extensions / apps / bookmarks / settings.
but this is happening more often and I keep losing settings

is there a way to end this madness? I am running Win 8.1 / latest version of chrome

I went into Settings / Advanced (in Chrome) and checked the box for "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" option. This fixed the problem for me.

Ironically, I went to this setting because another user had fixed it by UNCHECKING that option, which worked for him.

Perhaps simply changing the option causes Chrome to clean up something internally. I believe my bogus error msg began when Chrome actually DID fail to shut down correctly, and somehow the error flag got stuck.

EDIT: As of second half of 2018 the "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" option is now available in Settings > Advanced > System in Google Chrome (Windows 10).

This was just happening to me too. Just do the following things:

1. Open the folder %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\
2. Open the file preferences

3. Towards the bottom, find the following line:

   "exit_type": "Crashed"
   

   Then replace Crashed with normal like this:

   "exit_type": "normal"
   

4. Save and relaunch Chrome

The problem should be fixed!

Not working since Chrome 43

I've used Ryan's (one time solution) and valentt's (needed to change another preference) answers to fix it forever (I hope so) on Ubuntu

add following to Startup Apllications (don't forget to change your profile name and chrome directory):

sed -i 's/exit_type\"\:\ \"Crashed/exit_type\"\:\ \"normal/g' /home/janot/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Preferences