M1 MacBook Pros Are Crashing While Playing HDR YouTube Videos

Apple’s new M1 Pro and Max MacBook Pros are beasts in terms of performance based on the benchmarks and reviews we’ve seen, but if there is something the laptops can’t seem to handle it would be HDR YouTube videos. This is according to user reports who are claiming that their laptops are crashing while watching HDR YouTube videos.

According to MacRumors reader Cababah, they claim that watching a HDR video and then scrolling through the comments will return a kernel error message in macOS Monterey. It also seems to happen when watching a YouTube video in full screen and then exiting full screen.

Another reader, spiritedaway, adds, “Been happening to me as well, YouTube 4K HDR video on Safari. After closing full screen playback the Mac completely shuts down and reboots. M1 Pro 16″. I can pretty much get it to do it every single time.” It doesn’t seem to be limited to any browser either as users who are using Safari and Chrome are similarly affected.

Also, based on the reports, it seems to largely affected the models with 16GB of RAM, but there are a smattering of reports of those with 32GB and 64GB models who are affected as well. Now, this isn’t to say that the laptops can’t handle HDR videos. It seems more like a bug if anything, with some users speculating that it could be an issue with the AV1 decoding.

It is unclear how widespread this issue is, but there is a chance Apple is aware because in the macOS Monterey 12.1 beta, users are reporting that this problem seems to have been fixed.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: Chrome, Laptops, m1, Macbook Pro, safari, YouTube