Some 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro owners have been seeing kernel crashes when viewing HDR YouTube videos. A number of users on the MacRumors forums have complained of the issues.
One user reports that watching an HDR YouTube video in Safari and then scrolling through the comments results in a kernel error on macOS Monterey 12.0.1. Viewing a YouTube video in full-screen view and then exiting full-screen mode can also cause the error. It may be 16GB machines that are being primarily affected, although 32GB/64GB models are also affected.
From MacRumors reader spiritedaway:
Been happening to me as well, YouTube 4K HDR video on Safari. After closing full screen playback the Mac completely shuts down and reboots. M1 Pro 16″. I can pretty much get it to do it every single time
From MacRumors reader Sam.b1:
I’m getting the same error under the same conditions, 4k HDR YouTube playback on Safari/Chrome. At first I thought it could have been some Chrome bug but then it crashed in Safari too. I’m running Monterey 12.0.1, 16 inch M1 Max with 32GB RAM. I haven’t tried the workarounds yet. I’m thinking I should just exchange it, not sure.
There is some speculation that it’s an issue with AV1 decoding, but it is not yet clear what the specific problem is or if it’s something that can be fixed in a software update. Not all MacBook Pro owners are seeing this issue.
Some users report that the macOS Monterey 12.1 beta seems to fix the problem as they are reporting improved performance after updating.