MacOS crashes while playing 4k HDR YouTube in Chrome

Have you reviewed any kernel panic or app crash reports yet. If not, they should provide you with some potential clues as to why this may be happening.

Ref: If your Mac restarted because of a problem - Apple Support

This happens to me too but only when I have my LG super ultra wide plugged in. I have to resort to display port 1.1 to use the monitor and I cannot turn off HDR to my monitor. It just keeps crashing back to the login screen. It also crashes if I boot up the mac with the monitor plugged in.

I am having the same issue with my new 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max. I watch a full screen video in YouTube, then exit full screen, start to scroll down through the comments, computer freezes and then restarts. Others are reporting the same issue on MacRumors.

For those interested, here is a link to the MacRumors thread devoted to this issue, currently 17 pages long: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-pro-and-m1-max-macbook-pro-owners-complain-of-crashes-playing-hdr-youtube-videos.2321975/

Also, I discovered that switching the tab mode from "Separate" view to "Compact" view in Safari preferences significantly reduces the frequency of crashes. This is not a universal fix however, as I can still make my system crash using Chrome. Others have reporting that switching on the dark mode option on YouTube's website can help.

Anyone having this happen with a browser other than Chrome? There is another thread elsewhere in ASC that, even without videos running, Chrome and its minion "helpers" were using nearly all an MBP M1's 16GB RAM.

I have the same issue, started to happen to me lately, maybe after I updated into Monterey? maybe a lil bit after that(started to happen like 1-2 days ago). Going full screen on Safari while watching video on Youtube, it freezes and no response at all, I have managed to get green screen once; after that whenever it freezes like that on fullscreen on Safari&Youtube, I just press and hold to forceshutdown macbook and reopen it. The issue did not happen on Chrome for me, on the other hand, I switch to Chrome to watch fullscreen Youtube videos last a couple days. Need a new update to fix that issue imo, asap pls :x

What model Macbook do you have? All reporting thus far indicates this issue is only affecting some of the 2021 MacBook Pro 14" and 16" models with the M1 Pro/Max chips. If you don't have one of those machines, either this issue extends wider than originally thought or you are facing a different issue.

I got Intel chip 2020 Macbook 13'', therefore I think that this is a Monterey issue, not rly sure tho. Btw, I was just watching a 720p video or at max 1080p on safari&youtube on fullscreen, which was causing the crash/freeze. weird.

Has anyone else noticed that YouTube videos are no longer available in HDR? Or is it just me? When I try to watch an HDR video and click the gear icon, there is no "HDR" option to choose. There is only 4K.

My new M1 Max MacBook Pro does not crash when watching the Costa Rica 4K HDR video on YouTube, but the HDR tag is missing during playback, and the stream is not HDR. Apple TV's 4K HDR ad nor downloadable 4K HDR clips from home video sites also do not display 4K HDR. 4K HDR problems may be due to a video codec corrected in an upcoming release. It looks like they fixed the crash bug in Monterey 12.0.1.

@EchoPeak The HDR tag is missing because the stream is not HDR, as you noticed. HDR video on YouTube has been disabled for many (though reportedly not all) M1 Pro MacBooks. The crash bug has definitely not been fixed in Monterey 12.0.1. I can get my machine to crash by enabling developer mode in Safari and setting the user agent to Windows/Chrome. I did not realize the HDR had been disabled for the Apple TV app as well however.

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

check for any files that say kernel panic or have panic on them.

if there are files like this, copy their text into the additional text.

I'm having the same issue. I have been able to recreate the panic multiple times by loading and HDR video in 4k on Youtube and then slowly scrolling down the page to read the comments.

This issue happens to me primarily in Safari. It has also been reported by users who use Brave. It seems to be browser-agnostic.

I have had kernel panics after played 4K HDR videos in Chrome. MacBook Pro 14". I have yet to see the problem using Safari. I should check memory usage. I have 16 Gb of system RAM on this machine.