YouTube bug keeps kicking viewers out of full screen and killing audio

Despite its never-ending battle against ad blockers, YouTube otherwise offers a mostly fuss-free video streaming experience, especially if you’re a Premium subscriber. You open the app, scroll and find something you want to watch, and hit play. But what if even that seamless experience starts showing signs of instability?

That’s precisely what some YouTube users, on both Android and iOS, are experiencing right now.

Users have taken to Reddit to air their frustration about a new video playback bug, and comments under the posts make it clear that this isn’t an isolated issue. According to those affected, YouTube videos randomly exit full-screen mode and shrink into the app’s floating mini player without any user interaction. And if that wasn’t enough, this kills the video’s sound, so simply expanding it back into full-screen mode doesn’t resume playback normally.

The bug was first reported roughly a fortnight ago, and recent comments indicate that it’s still present. I, for one, haven’t encountered it on either Android or iOS, so I don’t have firsthand experience. Users, however, suggest that they’re forced to entirely close the affected video and start playback again to restore sound.

The OP said they started encountering the bug roughly a week before posting, suggesting that the playback glitch started affecting users sometime early in October. We came across a separate Reddit thread describing the same issue, but in their case, simply closing the video and playing it again doesn’t restore sound. They’re forced to restart the YouTube app. Commenters under that thread also reiterated the bug’s presence, with some going through multiple troubleshooting steps only to still be stuck.

User Jzgamer_12, for example, wrote:

Cleared cache, uninstalled and reinstalled youtube updates, forced stopped, restarted my phone a bunch, turned off and on certain playback settings, and reset all app preferences to see if a setting was changed to cause it but its still occurring.

At this point, it’s unclear what’s causing the issue. Considering the number of users reporting the issue, it’s hard to chalk it up to user error, accidental screen touches, or even ghost touches. Add to that the fact that audio stops working when videos are minimized, and it seems increasingly likely that something is wrong with YouTube itself.

For now, there seems to be no reliable workaround. We’ve reached out to Google to ask whether it’s aware of the issue and if it’s working on a fix. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back.