Sonoma freezes / crashes when playbacking videos in Quicktime

Yep me too. I freshly installed Sonoma on my Macbook Air M1 and when watching simple .mp4 on Quicktime or VLC and I am connected to an external Display/TV (HDMI), it starts to freeze/extremely lag. Only solution is Force reboot. PLS FIX APPLE DEVELOPERS

I was happy to see that turning off "automatically adjust brightness" solved the problem, but that was only valid the other day. Today I went on YouTube, clicked full screen, and there we go again, – MacBook Pro M1 Max completely inoperable. I've read some people recommend turn off mirroring, which might work, but I *do* need mirroring in my setup.

OldTimerZ wrote:

Thank you. So that likely means that M1 computers will be permanently stuck with the issue... Would love to be proven wrong.

... or not.

I never had this problem in my Mac Studio with M1 Max...

The fact this affects some macs but not others, even with the same family of processors, is what makes it harder to troubleshoot.

Have updated to 14.2 .... and I think it's now fixed! Playing multiple videos in VLC and Quicktime, no freezing etc. Anyone else able to confirm?

Agree still a bug! For me it happens on VLC too not just QT

Also still crashes if you boot in safe mode, then the problem should be caused by a Quicktime or system bug and not by some third party software. I don't understand how nobody at Apple has seen this and fixed after all those beta versions.

mma165

"This is a total disaster and I don't understand how something this basic is going unaddressed. "

Because it's Apple and the developers don't get any more time to deal with bugs. There are a number of other bugs that seem to have been ignored by Apple for months.

I have migrated everything from a Time Machine backup after a clean install. I know that this should not solve anything if there is some corrupted file in my user library, but (1) this was quickly done and who knows? (2) Doing the same on my MacBook Air M1 seems to have solved the problem. On my MacMini M1, no way. Don’t ask me why, especially because the contents of both Mac are very similar, since I migrated from the MacBook to the Mini when I bought it some time ago.  

Then I completely erased and recreated my user on the Mini, and the bug was still happening! After disconnecting the HDMI to my Samsung TV (second monitor), the problem disappeared. This sounds crazy, but I already had a lot of software and connection problems with this TV… I have no explanation for this, but since then I played hours and hours of mp4 with Quicktime. So I think that anyone should try disconnecting every connected equipment. I still have to reconnect this TV and see what happens. 

@mirave This is it! Where you said you have a Samsung TV... I have two 4K Samsung TV's connected to my 120hz LG monitor. One TV is connected to the HDMI out and the second is via a Type-C to HDMI adapter. They are both in clone mode of the main LG monitor.

Now I've just disconnected one of the TV's (HDMI output).. opened a quicktime video. It hangs, same issue. Then while it's hanging! .. then, before the system resets completely, I disconnect the second TV (connected the HDMI adapter). Then it comes back! System now responsive and I can play any video I like in any player I like.... just with only one screen connected.

Well at least I know what's causing it. But it would be nice to connect more than one screen to this Studio! It might be because I'm using clone.. or using a type-c adapter. So it's clearly a 100% Apple issue, GPU driver probably. No need to completely re-install your entire systems.

Testing further.. if I set each display to the same refresh rate (60hz), the crashes/lockup still occurs, but it takes several minutes of playback before it happens. When the main monitor was at 120hz (1440p), it was taking 20-30 seconds before the system locked. Then, the 60hz main monitor test, still released when pulling the HDMI cable out for the secondary cloned display.

mirave wrote:

No. But the posts are sometimes in chronological order, sometimes not. It's a mess só it is sometimes difficult to find a comment done earlier among 70 already

The default order is now "Best", which means that, as you say, replies are typically seen out of order.

One can change this on every page by choosing Oldest, but it is a nuisance. One can also change it in one's own profile, so it always appears ordered (but then only if you're logged in).

Sadly Apple is slow, too slow with a fix. QuickTime as many have pointed out, freezes sometimes with a simple move of the cursor. A hard reboot is required, and Apple expectedly should receive a crash report. Third Party app. VLC similarly freezes arbitrarily. THE FIX: ElMedia so far works flawlessly and has some nice features, but the modestly priced upgrade needed.

Seemingly, IPadOS 16's proclivity to not load personalized Apple Music and playlists, or to drop them if loaded and they are not there to play. Same kind of thing?

Is there no human or bot that can pick this mess up and get it fixed.

if you can't fix this please refund the money @apple_support. I bought 64GB M1 pro and thought it will never crash. Crashing while playing a video is not at all acceptable. happened to me multiple times and OS crashed too. went to the store and reinstalled the sonoma. why is that i am not able to force close the app. what kind of OS do you build. Playing a simple mkv file doesnt need lots of compute power my old pentium celeron windows can play that. please fix it or else revert your Sonoma OS. such a shame. I spent 5300$ on this macbook pro and I don't expect it to crash from this kind of machine with an apple M1 Max chip.

My wife also has the same issue on her Macbook Air M1, with Sonoma 14.2.1.

Tried with both ugreen usb-c hub with hdmi as well as another microsoft hdmi/usb-c adapter I had. Tried with 2 hdmi cables, 2 monitors, but always freezes the same way that's described here.

EDIT: @Bruko's suggestion seems to be working for me so far:

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I was able to solve the problem for myself. It seems to be related to the setting for the external monitor. I used to use mirroring, but after switching to using the monitor as an external monitor, the problem has disappeared.

Now I can use the QT Player in every situation.

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Instead of mirroring, I do an extended display, and I've been able to play this video for ~5 minutes so far, moving the mouse, opening different apps, navigating menus, etc.

Thanks Bruko! (for now) :D

Something strange i've noticed : if i screen record my mac (cmd+shift+5), i get zero issues playing any video while recording.

As soon as i hit STOP my mac crashed though.

Had a looong call with Apple, they forwarded me to their upper level specialist, which couldn't find a solution and will forward a ticket to the Sonoma devs.