[SOLVED]Video playback freezes in Chrome full screen, sound continues.

patkoscsaba · 2025-07-13 07:17:35

So, I am back from a 3 weeks vacation. I start up my PC, and I do a full update. New KDE, new chrome, new kernel, bunch of new firmware-xxx packages.
Reboot and open Chrome, open f1tv.com to watch the latest Formula 1 race.
As soon as I go to full screen, the video plays for about 5 seconds then the image freezes, but the sound continues. Same happens on YouTube or any other video I tried on different sites.
This happens only in Chrome. Chrome is installed from the "arch4edu" repository.
Any idea how to fix it?

So, what works:
* Firefox doesn't have this problem, videos play in fullscreen without issues.
* Locally I can play any video in full screen, no problem with MPV or VLC.
* Chrome plays all video if not in full screen mode. Even a maximized window play the video without issues.

What I tried:
* Use F11 to go to full screen instead of the video player's full screen mode -> Same problem.
* Try Chrome in a private window
* Start Chrome without extensions/plugins
* Start Chrome in guest mode (--guest) that is like a brand new instance without any settings
* Disable GPU acceleration in Chrome
* Read a bunch of similar issues here on the forum, but none had any useful solution.
* Uninstall Chrome from arch4edu repo, install it from AUR. Same result.

Chrome version:
Version 138.0.7204.100 (Official Build) (64-bit)

System Information:
Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.16.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.15.6-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 24 × Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 285K
Memory: 128 GiB of RAM (125.3 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: Intel® Arc
Graphics Processor 2: Intel® Graphics
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: Z890 AORUS MASTER
System Version: -CF-WCP-IDO

Last edited by patkoscsaba (2025-07-20 17:11:07)

patkoscsaba · 2025-07-20 17:10:30

Update:
Finally I figured it out. Ozone platform: wayland is the culprit. I am running KDE on Wayland and when I set the Preferred Ozone platform to Auto in chrome://flags the problem manifest immediately. When on Auto, chrome detects Wayland and starts in wayland mode. If I set it to "Default" which is X11, the playback problem disappears.

Original message:

It turns out something was broken in my Google Chrome configuration directory.
I ended up deleting ~/.config/google-chrome and then everything worked again.

Last edited by patkoscsaba (2025-07-21 19:05:25)

WorMzy · 2025-07-20 17:33:27

Thanks for reporting back and sharing your solution.

Mod note: moving to AUR Issues.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-07-13 07:17:35

[SOLVED]Video playback freezes in Chrome full screen, sound continues.

#2 2025-07-20 17:10:30

Re: [SOLVED]Video playback freezes in Chrome full screen, sound continues.

#3 2025-07-20 17:33:27

Re: [SOLVED]Video playback freezes in Chrome full screen, sound continues.

Board footer