Every time I start up google chrome, the default search is blank. This means that every time I want to use the address bar to search, I can't until I go to options and add google as default search.
I am running ubuntu 10.04, and it just randomly started doing this every time I load it up. Even if I exit out of chrome and start another session, the default search is missing. Should I just reinstall? I'm running chrome 5.0.375.70 (Official Build 48679) beta.
If nothing else I'll simply reinstall the package, will that remove all my bookmarks and extensions?

I'm having the same problem. Did you ever find out how to solve this?

You might try using the latest dev build. No problems with it at all on Debian sid.
$apt-cache policy google-chrome-unstable
google-chrome-unstable:
Installed: 6.0.472.25-r55113
Candidate: 6.0.472.25-r55113

I managed to get away from this by deleting my Chrome profile */.config/google-chrome/Default and restarting Chrome. This resets Chrome to defaults. (Chrome also seemed noticeably faster after that.)