chrome countdown error

looks like some spyware or malware in your system. something is pretty fighting it somewhat as that would probably be a huge ad on the page instead of the box.
 
maybe an extension you installed then? something is in your system. that's not a "chrome" thing in any way, shape or form/.
 
I've been having the same issue and it's been driving me nuts. I doubt that it is a virus because I am running Linux and most malware is OS-specific. (My friends are running Windows 7 and are having the same issue.)

I *think* it is coming from AdBlock Plus. Getochkn mentioned that it may be an Extension and I recently installed AdBlock Plus... I disabled it and I haven't seen the gray screen in a while.

Go to Tools > Extensions and disable Adblock Plus and see if that fixes the problem.