Chrome forgetting default Home Page on opening new tab

Currently using Multi-App edition.

Chrome often, but not always, defaults to "new-tab-page is blocked", ERR_BLOCKED_BY_ADMINISTRATOR error screen when first opening.  Users must click on Home button to get to configured home page.  Users don't always know to do this as they only see an error screen.  Chrome is configured to go to a specific URL for new tabs, but sometimes, in lock-down mode, it shows the error screen.

Do you have the "On startup > Open a specific page or set of pages" option defined in Chrome Settings ?

Yes.  It does this most of the time, but every once in a while it forgets or something and tries to open a blank tab with the error message above.  If there is a sequence of steps to reproduce it, I haven't found it.  Users of this are not tech savvy at all, so I can see them getting confused by the error, and may not think to hit the home button.  Restarting the devise doesn't seem to "reset" it either when I tried.  Had to unlock and lock again.  I am using the remote management feature, but won't have physical access to it very often.  Hoping others have seen this and have a solution.

Are there any ads or sporadic content on these pages? If so, you may need add those referenced URLs to the Allowed Sites list

No ads, it is a SharePoint site.  I added other URLs needed for authentication to allow list, and normally everything works fine.  

It is clearly a blank tab with an empty url address when opening Chrome once the behavior starts.  I have the users open Chrome from the circle menu that comes with the lockdown tool.