java and chrome browser

Hello,
I have been using the google chrome browser for some time with no issues. Of late I have been getting some sort of crash when playing a game on facebook and when I contacted them the suggested some steps to take to see if that resolved the issue. (the crash was that I would get a white box with a grey exclamation mark in the center and I would have to reload the page).

I had also tried using a different browser - both firefox and ie and would get the same results so I knew that it wasn't just the google chrome browser.

I went through the steps they suggested and when I went to go through the last set of steps (which were to try clearing the java cache) I did that as well and then thought I would just check to make sure that both flash and java were up to date.

The flash player is up to date and as per the website for java I have the current version installed as well. But....when I go to check / test the java with google chrome I keep getting a page telling me that I need to install a plugin so I clicked to do so and then started the install process for that. However, during the install process it tells me that it is already installed and do I want to reinstall it. I have tried reinstalling it, uninstalling the whole thing and then doing a clean install of java ---- all with the same results when using the google chrome browser.

I have checked and java is enabled in the control panel and in about://plugins it is also enabled. I have tried all of the troubleshooting steps I could find but nothing seems to be helping.

Any suggestions? (other than to not use google chrome?)

TIA