March 1, 2023, 9:57 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Sometimes just a letter or an image is enough to crash a smartphone. In the latest case, however, it’s a video that’s causing problems for smartphones made by Google.
Users of the Google Pixel 7 series are reporting issues on Reddit with playing a specific YouTube video. When the video is opened in the YouTube app on a Pixel 7 or 7 Pro, the smartphone crashes and restarts. This occasionally happens on Pixel 6 models and in third-party apps as well.
Update March 1, 2023: Google fixes video problem in Pixel devices
Google has announced that it will fix the error in the upcoming March update. However, the company does not provide details on what might be causing it. In the meantime, Pixel users should avoid playing the YouTube video on their devices as a precaution.
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Specific video crashes Google Pixel smartphones
The video in question is a scene from the 1979 horror film classic “Alien.” It is available in 4K resolution and with High-Dynamic Range (HDR). This could be where the problem lies. As users write in comments on YouTube and Reddit, newer Google Pixel devices seem to have trouble displaying HDR content. Since this only happens on Pixel 7 and Pixel 6 series smartphones, Google’s own hardware might be to blame. The company uses its self-developed Tensor chip in these two series. Older Pixel devices with Qualcomm chips, however, can play the video without issues.
The situation is reminiscent of a wallpaper bug that affected not only Google but also Samsung smartphones. At that time, a wallpaper circulated that, when opened, sent the Android user interface into a crash loop. The reason was the color space used by the image. It was exported with the ProPhoto RGB color spectrum. However, since the smartphones use the narrower sRGB spectrum, they couldn’t display the image. Since Android 11, the system automatically converts color spaces, but the affected smartphones with Android 10 could not do this yet.
Not all users of newer Pixel devices seem to be affected by the video bug. At least not all experience crashes when playing the video on their devices. TECHBOOK tested it on a Google Pixel 7a, which also uses the Tensor chip, and the video did not cause any errors.
Source
Android Authority: “Weird! A YouTube video is forcing the Pixel 7/7 Pro to reboot spontaneously” (accessed February 28, 2023)