Recent updates to the YouTube app for Android have reportedly caused a number of users to experience crashes. While not affecting everyone, reports of issues began to surface approximately a week ago on different different social media platforms, citing an unreliable experience when trying to use the app.The problem presents itself as videos loading, however no descriptions, comments, or linked videos will appear. After a few seconds, the app crashes and closing the app and restarting it simply repeats the process.
Meanwhile, posts on the YouTube subreddit, Google forums, and X/Twitter point to this being an issue that is being addressed on a newer version of the app, which has not yet rolled out to all. It is unknown which is the specific version that fixes the bug, but it appears to be the version currently being served to beta users. It is also unclear which specific version triggered the issue.
Is anyone else in the past few weeks experiencing this really annoying issue with YouTube for Android where it loads the video and starts playing, but none of the UI ever shows up, and then the app throws an ANR (application not responding)? pic.twitter.com/senV8eaWnT
— Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) January 22, 2024
As mentioned by 9to5Google, at this point the only two options available to immediately correct the situation, include going back to an older version of the app or installing the beta version. Although it sounds simple enough, going back to an older version of the app doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you will end up on a version prior to when the issue began, and installing the beta version could prove difficult considering the Android beta program for the YouTube app is always full. Another option could be to sideload the beta version of the app, but that is a practice that is usually not recommended for inexperienced users.
Hopefully, a working version of the Android YouTube app will roll out soon to all the affected users. YouTube is a widely used app and not being able to use it on your Android device could severely impact your smartphone experience.
