YouTube Video Causes Pixel Smartphones to Reboot

YouTube and Pixel smartphones

Users have found that Pixel smartphones powered by Google Tensor processors are rebooting when user is trying to watch a clip from the movie “Alien” on YouTube in 4K HDR.

Let me remind you that we also wrote that Janet Jackson Song Killed Hard Drives on Old Laptops, as well as Cellmate men’s chastity belts are vulnerable to attacks and dangerous for users.

Also the media wrote that Bypassing the Lock Screen on Pixel Smartphones Netted a Researcher $70,000.

A strange issue was reported by users on the Google Pixel subreddit. So, a person with the nickname OGPixel5 writes that when you try to watch this video on YouTube, Google Pixel 6, 6a and Pixel 7 smartphones instantly reboot. Something in this video has an extremely negative effect on the devices, as they go into reboot without having time to show their owner a single frame.

At the same time, other users note that after a reboot, for some reason, cellular communication does not work, and in order to activate it again, you will need to restart the device again, but manually.

The main theory of users is that something in the video format (it’s 4K HDR) is causing smartphones to crash. Similar errors have happened before, for example, in 2020 there was a lot of discussion about “cursed wallpapers” that crashed when set as a background (the problem was a color space error).

All phones affected by this bug use Tensor SoC from Google Exynos, so the problem does not appear on other devices. It is likely that Samsung Exynos-based devices can also experience crashes, but so far no one has reported such problems.

For the first time, information about the reboot-inducing YouTube video appeared on the network last weekend, and today ArsTechnica journalists reported that the developers seem to have already fixed this bug. The publication reported that yesterday, the Pixel 7 Pro available to the editors instantly turned off when trying to open a video, and today it plays it normally. Several users on the Pixel subreddit have also reported that the video is working fine now.

Although users and journalists did not find updates to the application and other signs of the release of any “patch”, the publication notes that Google may well remotely influence the operation of smartphones without actually installing updates.

By Vladimir Krasnogolovy

Vladimir is a technical specialist who loves giving qualified advices and tips on GridinSoft's products. He's available 24/7 to assist you in any question regarding internet security.

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