Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- YouTube’s web player appears to have a rendering bug that sends browsers into an endless loop of visual changes.
- The constant page rendering cycle causes a rapid increase in processor and RAM usage, with users reporting memory consumption in gigabytes.
- Users with browsers affected by the bug experience extreme lag, stuttering, and frame drops during video playback.
YouTube users report problems with the platform’s web playersite causing unexplained browser lag and excessive memory usage. According to the posts, stuttering, frame drops and RAM consumption are affecting users of many browsers, including Firefox and Brave (1, 2) on Reddit.
Developers on the Mozilla forum say that the “ytd-menu-renderer” tag, which houses the like, dislike, and share buttons, is causing visual errors. This is a flexible menu that dynamically shows and hides buttons based on the available screen width. The developers explain that “ytd-menu-renderer” works by automatically removing a button when it overflows the screen and putting the buttons back when the menu item expands. The code is intended to ensure that only the keys that fit comfortably on your screen are displayed.
However, the developer comments note that “hostElement.clientWidth” grows when “ytd-menu-renderer” automatically hides the button. This causes the YouTube code to think the menu area is wide enough to fit the button, so it adds the button back. Of course, because there is not enough visual space, “ytd-menu-renderer” removes the button again. The menu container expands once again and you probably get the idea. It’s a never-ending cycle that forces your browser and computer to calculate, resize, and render YouTube’s flexible menu.
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This error puts additional strain on the user’s system resources. Users have seen their browser’s RAM usage increase from several hundred megabytes to several gigabytes after attempting to play a YouTube video. Others have noticed a spike in CPU core usage when using YouTube’s web player, as documented by another Reddit post. post.
The YouTube web player rendering error affects users on multiple browsers, including Brave, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Mozilla is investigating the endless looping issue with the Firefox browser, but it’s unclear when a fix might be available on the YouTube side.
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