macOS Sonoma crashes when using QuickTime Player

Crash on qt7 every Time for me too… I have found there is a bug with codec h264 encoding ! When i encode in HQ 4444 or other codec, no more crash at all ! Can you try this issue and confirm ?

I have to show a video to the board of a Fortune 500 company and ran into this issue in every conference room running on TV's. I was going to go borrow a PC to have something that worked, but instead can run it in VLC player. I just wasted 2 hours I didn't have in trying to resolve this when I finally found this thread.

Product Feedback - Apple

We don't have the problem on our five Macs. That notwithstanding, try VLC or Cisdem players while Apple works on a possible bug fix.

johncla wrote:

OP here, this issue may be resolved. It was reported above that the problems with playing mp4 files might be connected to using an external monitor.

Last night I upgraded to Sonoma 14.4. This morning I disconnected my external monitor and played a 20-minute mp4 file w/o problems. This is hardly conclusive ... but the hint is to do this: 1. upgrade your OS, and 2. disconnect your external monitor.

That is great to hear that you are no longer having an issue but I and others are on macOS Sonoma 14.4.0 and the issue is not resolved. The whole point of having this issue resolved is so that we can have video playback using QuickTime with an external monitor attached and in mirrored mode.

Checking in on macOS Sonoma 14.4.1. I and others have sent detailed bug reports to Apple regarding this serious and undeniable issue. We are still waiting for a fix. Personally I was hoping to hold out until macOS Sonoma 14.5 is released but looking at the release notes of the betas, it does not look very promising. If the issue still persists I'll have no choice but to downgrade back to macOS Ventura which came pre-installed on my M1 MacBook Air. I am not looking forward to the process of re-formatting, re-installing macOS Ventura and restoring all my files and applications but if thats what it takes to get back to a proper working machine, then thats what I'll have to do.

I have the same problem. Super annoying! Thankfully, I was able to get around it by playing videos with either VLC player or Elmedia player.

Go and try other free media player like VLC or IINA. No problem using them macOS 14.2. However, both of them don't have the screen recording feature.

That is the first logical observation I have seen so far regarding this crashing issue, have observed 6-7 crashes since update to Sonoma, all times the external monitor was connected in mirror mode. Not sure why that should cause a crash, but I can also observe how this behaves in extended display mode.

Also, does anyone know why Apple is so silent on this issue?

I have never had a Quicktime Player crash in Sonoma, and I use it extensively, and with two displays connected.

Are you using external displays using the Apple AV digital adapter?

I do not use Stage Manager, which appears to be related. Did you try turning it off, as suggested?

I am using an old Thunderbolt screen with my MacBook... Quicktime crashes at times... I see if I disable the extended Thunderbolt screen. I don't have crashing issues. Going to try my old Del screen lols

A week later now - is the problem still there? I experienced the same thing a few months ago when I also upgraded to Sonoma, I couldn't use quicktime at all without it freezing and crashing. I downgraded back to Ventura and the problem was not there anymore. The Quicktime glitch still hasn't been fixed?

Hello, alexanderlindo:

I changed the Live Wallpaper to a static image and tested by clicking two .mov files. The first one played fine and then the second one froze my laptop which is an Apple M1 Pro running macOS Sonoma v14.2.1 (23C71). This change had no effect from my end.

Best,

Silvio

Just an update, I have been using 14in Mac Pro without monitor for past few days and not experienced a crash. As soon as I connect monitor it becomes a ticking time bomb, no particular pattern but it does crash very often.

This thread is about QuickTime Player, but I don't think it is Quick Time related. Many of the crashes I had, I was using Remote Desktop into a remote server and was not even using the laptop. It also crashed on using QuickTime once and hence I landed on this forum.

Just a hunch but I think it has something to do with "click wallpaper to reveal desktop", just a hunch. I notice that this feature does not work well with external monitor. In fact, even without monitor this feature tends to make the laptop unresponsive for a moment..... QuickTime freezes, iMovie starts to show spinner etc.

Have you spoken to senior advisor or Apple? Any chance appt with Genius Bar could help. Genius Bar not what it used to be. They couldn’t find a solution for my issue. Had to scour internet and took 6 months to figure out.