A ‘cursed’ video on the YouTube app is causing the latest Pixel line of phones to crash. The clip is of Ridley Scott’s famous 1979 sci-fi/horror masterpiece, Alien, forcing Pixel 7, 7 Pro, 6, 6 Pro, and 6a smartphones to reboot without warning.
A Pixel user on Reddit first reported this issue, and Mishaal Rahman bought it into the spotlight. Rahman stated it might be an Android 13 QPR2 beta issue. Per the Redditor, the video only plays for a few seconds and then instantly reboots their Pixel 7. Many Pixel users chimed in, and some reported that their Pixel 6 or 7 series device didn’t have any issue playing the clip and worked fine afterward, while others stated that the video caused their device to reboot and disconnect the phone’s cellular service.
Luckily, fixing the issue is pretty straightforward. Some users said a quick reboot or simply toggling the airplane mode on/off fixed the cellular network issue. However, there’s a possibility of permanent damage to your phone, so it’d be better if you don’t watch this Alien movie YouTube video on a Pixel 6 or 7 series phone.
The clip isn’t crashing the older Pixel devices, which makes many believe that the Tensor silicon may be the culprit behind this shenanigan. Something similar happened in 2020 when a wallpaper image of a national park killed Pixel and Samsung phones if applied because it had colors beyond the spectrum supported by Android phones. Based on this, many theorize that YouTube’s HDR compression creates colors beyond the range supported by the newer Pixel phones, resulting in an instant reboot.
Google is yet to respond on the matter, but hopefully, it will fix whatever’s causing the issue since it’s the second time something like this has happened in just a few years.
