Windows 7: Tabbed pages won't open - instead they close. Can't access browser set

I am using Win HP 7, and use Google Chrome as my default browser. When I try to go to an already open tab, I can't access it - instead of switching to the tab, it closes it. The only way I can go to a site on a different tab than the one opened at startup is to open a new tab, then type in the address. Ex: I have my browser set to open my homepage, google on a separate tab, and another site on the third. Since I just opened the browser, I'm initially on my home page. But if I click the tab I wish to go to, instead of going to the already opened page, the tab closes. I cannot access the browser settings either. The only times this ever changes is if I restart the entire machine, however, that is no longer "fixing" it. I want to know why this is happening, and I think either my local or roaming profile may be corrupt - in the past one a few occasions I've booted my machine, and gotten a msg. before Windows starts that it cannot access my profile. On the few occaisions this has happened, I restarted my machine and it loaded a usable profile.
Thinking it may be something in the browser settings that is doing this, I tried to open them, but can't - it just clicks and does nothing. (In Chrome only.) I have tried uninstalling Chrome, restarting the machine, downloading and reinstalling the Chrome browser. While this fixes the problem in the short term, it always happens again. I can't open my bookmark manager to back up my bookmarks and do not want to lose them again.

Is my problem with my profile? If I open IE9, the tabbed pages work properly; at least I've never had this problem. I prefer Chrome because it is so much faster, and easier (usually) to use than IE9.

HELP!

clear temporary internet files and cookies, update chrome. IE9 is very good, unless you are adamant about keeping chrome

I thought I'd described my problem well enough, but maybe I'm not understanding your solution. When I have all of this going on in Chrome (Which btw, I am adamant in using
I can't get the part in Chrome where you change those options, ie; clear cache, bookmarks, etc. I'm assuming you meant do it w/in Chrome. If I go to internet options in IE9, and delete my browsing history, etc, does it amount to the same as if I'd done it in Chrome????

I posted this ? on the Chrome site as well - and have not heard nary a peep out of them, so thank you to my fellow sevenforums user's! I'm going to keep trying what has been working - the last time it happened, I uninstalled/reinstalled, it worked fine, so I created a sys restore point their. The next time it happened I restored to that point and it worked ok, so now I've been creeping along, and if I happen to add/lose something in my c: drive I create a restore pnt. and next will restore to most recent etc.

I think this is a Chrome bug - and will be fixed. Try Chrome out - whatever IE9 can do, Chrome can do faster.
Thank you to all who read this!

No its not the same click on the spanner > options > under the hood > clear browsing data . You can then select what to delete & the time period from the past hour etc to the beginning of time.
To delete bookmarks open the bookmark manager.
There does not seem to be any options in Chrome to change tab behaviour.
Do you use the mouse to click on the tab to switch to it ?
You could try switching tabs by using the Ctrl+Tab keys to go right & Ctrl+Shift+Tab to go left.

Of course you could always use Opera a fast modern browser with plenty of options & features that Chrome cannot match.