So I recently came across this Reddit forum wherein many users have said that a specific YouTube video will crash or force reboot their Pixel 6/7 series device. Without giving it a second thought, I decided to give it a shot right away- and it turns out that it was really the case, my device straightaway went into a force reboot.
What was even more intriguing to note is that I didn’t even have to play the video, I just searched for that in the app and the video started playing in the thumbnail- and that was enough to force reboot my device. While I tried this test on my Pixel 6A running the latest February 2023 Android 13 update, users were able to emulate this issue on their Pixel 6/Pro as well as on their Pixel 7/Pro devices as well.
This YouTube Video will crash your Pixel 6/7 device [Proof]
For some, the issue is all the more concerning as it resulted in network loss- which only came back either after resetting the APN or the entire network settings. So for the brave souls out there, if you wish to give it a try, then please take a backup beforehand. Moroever, this issue is only emulated if you launch the video in the official YouTube app and not in any third-party client or Chrome.
With that said, a similar issue was also noticed a couple of years back when a wallpaper ended up soft-bricking various Samsung devices. The culprit at that point in time was a Pixel in the wallpaper [no pun intended!]. While it’s too early to suggest the reasoning this time around, but many fingers are being pointed out at the 4K HDR rendering of that video.
If that’s really the case, then it leaves a lot to be answered. Primary among them is the question as to why only a few 6/7 series devices are crashing and not all. While we will update this post as soon as we get hold of this information, in the meantime, let’s get you acquainted with the video details:
Video Details
Video name: Alien 4K HDR | Get Out of There Link: https://youtu.be/MbdVuStrEV8
Don’t even think of sending this video to any Pixel 6/7 series Telegram group by disguising this video clip as something else and asking users to play it once!
