[Updated] Some YouTube users report 'screen turning black when switching to full screen mode', but there're potential workarounds

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on February 16, 2023) follows:

YouTube is one of the biggest video-sharing websites in the world that lets you watch videos conveniently. It can also be called a repository of long-forgotten music videos, appealing advertisements, and more.

The site also receives regular updates and introduces new features every now and then. Talking about the features, its full-screen mode allows you to watch videos that take up your entire screen.

One can easily access this functionality by going to the video you’d like to watch and then clicking the full-screen option at the bottom-right of the video player.

YouTube screen turning black in full screen mode

However, some YouTube users (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) on the web version are facing an issue where their screen goes black when trying to view something in full-screen mode.

Whenever I click full screen on a YouTube video, the screen goes black but the audio continues to play. I am not able to change anything while this happens. I have to press esc on my keyboard. I am on a MacBook Air, I have quit chrome and restarted it. Any ideas?
Source

@TeamYouTube whenever I fullscreen a video to watch, the screen goes completely black. Audio still plays, but I cannot exit unless i hit esc. I am on google chrome.
Source

It seems that it mostly happens when users attempt to move directly from the theatre mode to the full-screen mode. It also occurs when they are using their premium accounts.

Interestingly, even when the YouTube video goes black, affected users are still able to listen to the audio as it keeps playing. Moreover, a similar issue pooped up previously where the black screen would only show for the console devices.

This is incredibly frustrating as clearing the browser cache and reinstalling the browser don’t seem to help fix the issue. Even updating video drivers and running a virus scan isn’t helping the users.

Potential workarounds

Fortunately, the black screen issue on YouTube can be solved with the help of some workarounds. One of them includes avoiding the theatre mode (1,2).

Some affected users are also able to watch their YouTube videos in full-screen mode when logged out of their accounts.

I’ve spent the last 50 minutes trying to fix the same problem. All I’ve found is that it works when I’m logged *out* of youtube, but not when I’m logged *in*, no matter which browser I try (tried Chrome, Firefox and Edge).
Source

It seems that the issue isn’t occurring for users when they use the platform in Incognito Mode.

YouTube goes black when I full screen, except when incognito
Source

The YouTube team hasn’t acknowledged the issue so far. Meanwhile, those affected can use the workarounds mentioned above. But we hope they come up with a fix for the black screen issue in full-screen mode at the earliest.

We’ll keep tabs on the latest developments and update this article accordingly.

12:40 pm (IST): Fortunately, YouTube support has acknowledged this issue and said the developers are looking into it. However, no ETA for a fix was shared.

thx for the report, we’re aware of this issue & are looking into it
Source

NOTE: There are more such stories in our dedicated YouTube section so be sure to go through them as well.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.