M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro Owners Complain of Crashes Playing HDR YouTube Videos

[UncleGuido]

In Chrome on the Mac HDR plays fine. It doesn’t even crash for me.

I (and others) have seen panics when playing HDR in Chrome on Mac. Also, it seems that these videos are not being displayed as HDR in Chrome - at least not tonight, on my 16" Macbook Pro M1. So whatever has changed, to suppress HDR playback, it is also affecting Chrome.

 

[TooManyNotes]

Not entirely correct.
It can detect if you are using Safari. In Chrome on the Mac HDR plays fine. It doesn’t even crash for me.

That is not my experience. It does not matter which browser I am using - Safari, Chrome, Firefox… the HDR option is not available. Are you seeing the red “HDR” label next to the settings gear when you watch these videos? If so, what kind of Mac are you using and what version of macOS?

 

[BarryDuffman]

That is not my experience. It does not matter which browser I am using - Safari, Chrome, Firefox… the HDR option is not available. Are you seeing the red “HDR” label next to the settings gear when you watch these videos? If so, what kind of Mac are you using and what version of macOS?

I am seeing the HDR label in Chrome, and it is definitely HDR just by the looks of it. This is from just now:

I am on the base model 14" M1 Pro MBP running MacOS 12.0.1
And no matter how hard I try I cannot get it to crash.

 

[TooManyNotes]

I am seeing the HDR label in Chrome, and it is definitely HDR just by the looks of it. This is from just now:
View attachment 1912515
I am on the base model 14" M1 Pro MBP running MacOS 12.0.1
And no matter how hard I try I cannot get it to crash.

Very interesting! Thanks for confirming and the screenshot. Welp, I'm not sure how to explain that you can select HDR and others like myself cannot. I'm also on MacOS 12.0.1. Could YT somehow be suppressing HDR for only certain MBP models or configurations? I'm on a 16" M1 Max with 32GB RAM and 1TB HDD

 

[Pertus]

Very interesting! Thanks for confirming and the screenshot. Welp, I'm not sure how to explain that you can select HDR and others like myself cannot. I'm also on MacOS 12.0.1. Could YT somehow be suppressing HDR for only certain MBP models or configurations? I'm on a 16" M1 Max with 32GB RAM and 1TB HDD

I also see HDR and definitely can play it on Chrome but no HDR option on Safari. Also I don't get HDR stream in Netflix on Safari anymore although the website shows Dolby vision format on the movie page and it definitely worked several days ago. I have a base MBP M1 pro 14"

 

[BarryDuffman]

That is Weird. I have no explanation for that difference in behavior.

I find it a bit odd that it has been removed from Safari (or Macs in general) in the first place, since the workaround was quite simple by using compact tabs until a fix is found.

 

[UncleGuido]

That is Weird. I have no explanation for that difference in behavior.

I find it a bit odd that it has been removed from Safari (or Macs in general) in the first place, since the workaround was quite simple by using compact tabs until a fix is found.

Barry, I think some people have reported the panics when running compact tabs, so that might not be a 100% reliable workaround. I also noticed that you are in Denmark. Perhaps that is why you are still enabled for HDR, while some of us in the USA are blocked from it in certain browsers and websites.

 

[TooManyNotes]

Barry, I think some people have reported the panics when running compact tabs, so that might not be a 100% reliable workaround.

This is true. I was still able to crash mine running compact view, although much less frequently... 2 times out of maybe 75 attempts. Definitely an improvement but not 100%

 

[TheLusciousLefty]

Mine was working perfectly until I tried it today. Changed to chrome, used it while charging, turned off and on and changed display type many time. bt709 I hate this. I don't know what changed.

 

[byron_hinson]

Mine works in Chrome - just tried today on new MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16" - problem I have is that it dims in about 5 seconds, working well before that. All seems bizarre.

 

[cvince]

Signed up just to respond to this. My brother has a 14" M1Pro and HDR is working on his laptop. I have a new 16" M1Max, and for me HDR doesn't work without the user agent trick. I've been reading the threads past and have observed a trend of this not working at all on 16" M1Maxes, and working (somewhat) on 14" M1 Pros..

The 14/16" might be a coincidence, but what if this is caused by M1Pro vs M1max?

A few observations:
1) I analyzed default user agent strings on both laptops, and it appears the strings are identical across both laptops
2) HDR works properly in AppleTV, but not on browsers
3) The user agent trick works with Windows (Chrome or FF both work under Windows)
4) IIRC, HDR was working perfectly on safari upon first delivery of the laptop. Updating to 12.0.1 was what broke this.
5) I tried a system reset using the apple silicon method and it appears it retains the latest update as the reset point, so I wasn't able to revert back to 12.0 in order to validate the above.

Wonder what you guys think.

 

[TooManyNotes]

Signed up just to respond to this. My brother has a 14" M1Pro and HDR is working on his laptop. I have a new 16" M1Max, and for me HDR doesn't work without the user agent trick. I've been reading the threads past and have observed a trend of this not working at all on 16" M1Maxes, and working (somewhat) on 14" M1 Pros..

The 14/16" might be a coincidence, but what if this is caused by M1Pro vs M1max?

A few observations:
1) I analyzed default user agent strings on both laptops, and it appears the strings are identical across both laptops
2) HDR works properly in AppleTV, but not on browsers
3) The user agent trick works with Windows (Chrome or FF both work under Windows)
4) IIRC, HDR was working perfectly on safari upon first delivery of the laptop. Updating to 12.0.1 was what broke this.
5) I tried a system reset using the apple silicon method and it appears it retains the latest update as the reset point, so I wasn't able to revert back to 12.0 in order to validate the above.

Wonder what you guys think.

Thanks for your contributions/observations and welcome to the club. It's an interesting hypothesis and seems possible. I seem to recall some users with the 16" M1 Max posting they were not having issues but I could be wrong. Are you saying your brother's 14" automatically displays HDR content without the user agent trick?

My machine still will not load HDR content on YouTube. I checked in with Apple again yesterday and they have no official answers yet. Their technical team is supposed to call me back to troubleshoot, but at this point I have decided to return the machine. I have a 16" M1 Pro scheduled for delivery on December 2nd and will report back on how that one performs. Decided to try the Pro this time instead of the Max because the better battery life is tempting me.

 

[cvince]

Thanks for your contributions/observations and welcome to the club. It's an interesting hypothesis and seems possible. I seem to recall some users with the 16" M1 Max posting they were not having issues but I could be wrong. Are you saying your brother's 14" automatically displays HDR content without the user agent trick?

My machine still will not load HDR content on YouTube. I checked in with Apple again yesterday and they have no official answers yet. Their technical team is supposed to call me back to troubleshoot, but at this point I have decided to return the machine. I have a 16" M1 Pro scheduled for delivery on December 2nd and will report back on how that one performs. Decided to try the Pro this time instead of the Max because the better battery life is tempting me.

That's correct. My brother doesn't need the user agent trick.

I'd be willing to bet the M1Max folks haven't updated to 12.0.1, as my max was definitely working (I think sometime before the 11th).

It would be interesting to see what you discover with your pro version, and since you're in contact with Apple, it's another data point for them to work with.

 

[anticipate]

Signed up just to respond to this. My brother has a 14" M1Pro and HDR is working on his laptop. I have a new 16" M1Max, and for me HDR doesn't work without the user agent trick. I've been reading the threads past and have observed a trend of this not working at all on 16" M1Maxes, and working (somewhat) on 14" M1 Pros..

The 14/16" might be a coincidence, but what if this is caused by M1Pro vs M1max?

A few observations:
1) I analyzed default user agent strings on both laptops, and it appears the strings are identical across both laptops
2) HDR works properly in AppleTV, but not on browsers
3) The user agent trick works with Windows (Chrome or FF both work under Windows)
4) IIRC, HDR was working perfectly on safari upon first delivery of the laptop. Updating to 12.0.1 was what broke this.
5) I tried a system reset using the apple silicon method and it appears it retains the latest update as the reset point, so I wasn't able to revert back to 12.0 in order to validate the above.

Wonder what you guys think.

It is server side. The issue happens on MacOS 12.1 Beta 3 too. I just noticed this. It used to work fine when I first got the (M1 Max) laptop. I believe Google disabled it due to reports of KPs in HDR playback. (It works fine if you change the user agent to Chrome/windows in Safari). I bet it will be re-enabled again once 12.1 comes out of beta.

 

[cvince]

It is server side. The issue happens on MacOS 12.1 Beta 3 too. I just noticed this. It used to work fine when I first got the (M1 Max) laptop. I believe Google disabled it due to reports of KPs in HDR playback. (It works fine if you change the user agent to Chrome/windows in Safari). I bet it will be re-enabled again once 12.1 comes out of beta.

How does this describe the 14"pro vs max discrepancies then? Some folks with the new macbook pros still have HDR working even today, and they're on M1pro chips. Unless google knows more about your machine than the user agent string (which is identical between the pro/max, and 14/16), I don't see how it's possible for google to "disable" it for one hardware configuration of one model of one make of computer.

 

[anticipate]

How does this describe the 14"pro vs max discrepancies then? Some folks with the new macbook pros still have HDR working even today, and they're on M1pro chips. Unless google knows more about your machine than the user agent string (which is identical between the pro/max, and 14/16), I don't see how it's possible for google to "disable" it for one hardware configuration of one model of one make of computer.

Because they just did a blanket disable without getting specific for one computer or the other?

 

[Realityck]

How does this describe the 14"pro vs max discrepancies then? Some folks with the new macbook pros still have HDR working even today, and they're on M1pro chips. Unless google knows more about your machine than the user agent string (which is identical between the pro/max, and 14/16), I don't see how it's possible for google to "disable" it for one hardware configuration of one model of one make of computer.

Another variable would be the server farm that HDR YouTube is playing from. Currently I see HDR Youtube not playing both for a M1 24" iMac just as it is not M1 Max MBP currently. The new 2021 MBP's are running 12.0, 12.0.1, or 12.1 beta not much divergence.

Today, Google uses more than 2 million custom servers in more than a dozen data centers around the globe to make their products hum.

 

[bradl]

Signed up just to respond to this. My brother has a 14" M1Pro and HDR is working on his laptop. I have a new 16" M1Max, and for me HDR doesn't work without the user agent trick. I've been reading the threads past and have observed a trend of this not working at all on 16" M1Maxes, and working (somewhat) on 14" M1 Pros..

The 14/16" might be a coincidence, but what if this is caused by M1Pro vs M1max?

A few observations:
1) I analyzed default user agent strings on both laptops, and it appears the strings are identical across both laptops
2) HDR works properly in AppleTV, but not on browsers
3) The user agent trick works with Windows (Chrome or FF both work under Windows)
4) IIRC, HDR was working perfectly on safari upon first delivery of the laptop. Updating to 12.0.1 was what broke this.
5) I tried a system reset using the apple silicon method and it appears it retains the latest update as the reset point, so I wasn't able to revert back to 12.0 in order to validate the above.

Wonder what you guys think.

This answers the question I had back in the early pages of this thread. It sounds to me that this was working fine with the build that was seeded onto all of the M1 Pro/M1 Max Macs, which was the 12.0 build of Monterey. There was another build that was made after that for all existing Macs as well as Intel Macs, which was what everyone else was able to upgrade to. This would also mean that all newly purchased M1 Pro and M1 Max Macs were able to upgrade to that, which broke everything. And with no way to revert that upgrade, you can't get back what was tested and passed QA for M1 Pro and M1 Max.

This to me now definitely screams that this is software related, and a future build of Monterey will be able to fix this.

BL.

 

[Realityck]

This answers the question I had back in the early pages of this thread. It sounds to me that this was working fine with the build that was seeded onto all of the M1 Pro/M1 Max Macs, which was the 12.0 build of Monterey. There was another build that was made after that for all existing Macs as well as Intel Macs, which was what everyone else was able to upgrade to. This would also mean that all newly purchased M1 Pro and M1 Max Macs were able to upgrade to that, which broke everything. And with no way to revert that upgrade, you can't get back what was tested and passed QA for M1 Pro and M1 Max.

This to me now definitely screams that this is software related, and a future build of Monterey will be able to fix this.

BL.

When this occurred during a past Friday when it first began. The night before I had HDR working playing Nippon Wandering perfectly on a new M1 Max MBP and the same with a M1 24" iMac. Later during that Friday that I noticed it stopped working, it was the same with both Macs. I didn't update the MBP right away to 12.0.1, and I was running 12.1 beta 2 on the M1 24" iMac. So it is not software related. It is the google YouTube server not responding to machine ID to play HDR content.

 

[bradl]

When this occurred during a past Friday when it first began. The night before I had HDR working playing Nippon Wandering perfectly on a new M1 Max MBP and the same with a M1 24" iMac. Later during that Friday that I noticed it stopped working, it was the same with both Macs. I didn't update the MBP right away to 12.0.1, and I was running 12.1 beta 2 on the M1 24" iMac. So it is not software related. It is the google YouTube server not responding to machine ID to play HDR content.

Indulge me. Could you drop your iMac back down to the last build of Big Sur and try that? It would be interesting to see if it is happening on that. If it is, then it is definitely not the OS, because the iMac wouldn't have the new CPUs. If it doesn't happen there, then it points back to software, as Monterey would be the only common link between the hardware for your tests.

BL.

 

[TooManyNotes]

It would be interesting to see what you discover with your pro version, and since you're in contact with Apple, it's another data point for them to work with.

Just got my 16" M1Pro (not Max) replacement and can at least confirm that HDR is still disabled by default in Safari and Chrome. The machine arrived with 12.0.1 preinstalled, so I cannot test for whether the update changed it. Are you sure your brother isn't still on 12.0?

Update: I changed the user agent to Windows/Chrome and tried watching a Jacob Schwartz HDR video on YT. Got my new machine to crash on the very first try! Pretty much confirms this isn't a Pro vs. Max issue as it's happened to me now with both.

Previous machine: M1 Max 10/32 32GB 1TB
Current machine: M1 Pro 10/16 32GB 2TB

 

[bradl]

Just got my 16" M1Pro (not Max) replacement and can at least confirm that HDR is still disabled by default in Safari and Chrome. The machine arrived with 12.0.1 preinstalled, so I cannot test for whether the update changed it. Are you sure your brother isn't still on 12.0?

Update: I changed the user agent to Windows/Chrome and tried watching a Jacob Schwartz HDR video on YT. Got my new machine to crash on the very first try! Pretty much confirms this isn't a Pro vs. Max issue as it's happened to me now with both.

Previous machine: M1 Max 10/32 32GB 1TB
Current machine: M1 Pro 10/16 32GB 2TB

This has me thinking this goes back to software, so something is broken in Monterey that affects everything Silicon. And the fact that it is reproducible so far in every version of Monterey released points more at software. It would be interesting to see if this works on anything Silicon with Big Sur. If it does, Monterey is the issue.

BL.

 

[Pooneil]

I really don't want to go back to factory settings but my M1 MacBook Pro 14" freezes intermittently and reboots and I haven't been using YouTube at all.

 

[TooManyNotes]

This has me thinking this goes back to software, so something is broken in Monterey that affects everything Silicon. And the fact that it is reproducible so far in every version of Monterey released points more at software. It would be interesting to see if this works on anything Silicon with Big Sur. If it does, Monterey is the issue.

BL.

I'm thinking it's the software as well. But unless I'm missing something, I do not think it is possible for this error to occur in anything other than Monterey, since all new MBPs ship with Monterey. Is it possible to move the OS backwards from Monterey to Big Sur using an earlier backup from another machine? Otherwise it's tough to eliminate hardware as a variable because everything is mutually exclusive. Apple's LR XDR display hardware is only available on M1 Pro silicon which only runs on Monterey. I still think there's likely to be a software solution, since this issue does not occur with HDR content displayed through other sources, ie. the TV app on macOS. Something with how these web browsers are rendering HDR content, or what the OS is doing with that information, is causing something to break.

 

[TooManyNotes]

I really don't want to go back to factory settings but my M1 MacBook Pro 14" freezes intermittently and reboots and I haven't been using YouTube at all.

Is there anything in common with the reboots, in terms of what you are doing when it freezes?