Some Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro owners say that their phones have a tendency to crash when they are watching YouTube in fullscreen mode, with no real fix in sight.
The issue has reportedly been happening since Google first released the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro in late 2022, with people taking to social media and forums to report the problem.
9to5Google reports that the issue doesn’t appear to be impacting other video streaming apps or services, although it’s possible that some people may experience slightly different problems. For now though, this looks like an issue largely specific to Google’s YouTube app.
The issue, apparently, pops up when people are watching YouTube or YouTube TV in fullscreen mode and then attempt to quit the app by swiping up on the navigation bar. That should take them back to the Home screen, but in some instances it isn’t, and the phone locks up.
In some cases, the only way to get things up and running again is to wait for the phone to realise something is wrong and restart itself. Alternatively, a hard restart can be performed by holding down on the power button until the phone does its thing.
Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like this particular problem crops up every time the YouTube or YouTube TV apps are used, although it does sound like it’s happening enough to be irritating. Google so far hasn’t said anything on the issue and no fix has arrived, unfortunately. As 9to5Google notes, the only thing users can do right now is to continue reporting the bug when it crops up and hope that Google gets around to figuring out what’s awry.
One potential solution in the interim could be to watch your YouTube content via a web browser, but that’s less than ideal. Still, it’s probably better than having to restart your entire phone just because you wanted to watch the Pocket-lint YouTube channel in fullscreen mode.
