If you also use the YouTube mobile app regularly, then you probably have encountered the YouTube black screen issue. It's as frustrating as cutting you off in the middle of a funny show, or at worse, while you're serious with a Live Show on the app. Nonetheless, there are things you can do when the issue happens on your phone. And right here, we'll guide you on how to fix YouTube's black screen on your phone.
Why does my phone screen keep going black on YouTube?
Before we begin, we'd like to tell you that the YouTube app showing the black screen is not tied to a single origin. It could be caused by numerous reasons including bugs in the YouTube app, poor internet connection, corrupted app cache, poor phone memory management/insufficient memory, outdated apps, ad-blockers, battery savers, hardware acceleration, etc.
When one or more of these are affecting the app, you're likely going to have your YouTube app showing a black screen. Don't panic, however, as the fixes below will help you resolve the issue.
Tip: Ensure you use the app after trying a fix to see if the issue persists. If a tip doesn't work, try the next one.
How to fix YouTube's black screen on the phone
The first thing, and the general solution to try when your phone screen goes black while watching a YouTube video is to restart the phone. Normally, we'd tell you to restart the YouTube app first; but since restarting your phone does that and a host of others together, we recommend you to restart your phone instead.
Use YouTube for a while after restarting your phone to see what happens. If the issue reoccurs, however, here are eight more solutions to try!
Remove and sign in to your Google Account again.
Sometimes, what causes YouTube's black screen on phones is the issue with Google account synchronization. Since all Google apps (and many other apps on your Android phone) rely on your Google Play Services and your Google account to work, you may encounter problems if something is wrong with the account synchronization. Thankfully, you can fix the issue by removing and signing in to the account again.
Considering that, our first tip on how to fix YouTube's black screen on your phone is to sign out of your Google account and sign in to it again.
Here’s the step you need to follow:
- Open your phone Settings
- Click on the Accounts
- Select your primary Google account from the list.
- Tap the Remove Account button to sign out of the Google account. (On some phones, you may need to tap a 3-dot button in the top right first.)
The Android system may warn you to remove the account; just continue by removing it. After that, we recommend you restart your phone to refresh the system, then continue below.
- Return to Settings → Accounts, then tap the Add an account
- Select Google from the list, then sign in to your Google account again.
- Finally, open the YouTube app and use it for a while to see if the black screen problem is anymore.
Check the status of your network connection.
If a YouTube video takes longer to load because of a poor internet connection, it could birth a black screen.
And sometimes, the YouTube screen may become black but you’ll continue to hear audio; that’s when you’re considered to have the “Android YouTube black screen with audio” problem.
In such cases, what you need is to confirm that you have a working internet connection. We won't dwell much on that since we have an article to resolve that. Learn how to fix slow internet problems on your phone.
Erase the YouTube app cache
If your network connection is at its best but you still have the “Black screen YouTube Android” problem, the next solution to try is clearing cached data for the YouTube app.
Like every other app, YouTube caches some data to use later and also improves its performance. However, the cached data can affect your experience once corrupted to not needed anymore. In that case, what you need is to clear the cached data, and hopefully, it will fix the black screen issue forever.
- Open your phone
- Tap the Apps & Notifications
- Click on See All Apps; App info, or Manage Apps.
- Now, find and select YouTube on the list.
- Tap Storage (& cache)
- Tap the Clear cache button to erase the cache storage.
- Do not tap the Clear data button, for now, to avoid losing your downloaded videos.
Once you're done with that, simply restart the YouTube app and use it for a while to see if the black screen issue is gone.
Update the YouTube app and your phone
If the issue persists, the next tip on how to fix YouTube's black screen on the phone is to update the YouTube app itself. If an app is outdated on your phone, you may encounter many issues using it. The same goes for the YouTube app shows a black screen as well.
If you're not sure to have updated your apps recently, simply visit the Play Store to do so.
- Open the Play Store app on your phone.
- In the top right, tap your profile icon.
- Select Manage apps & devices.
- Tap the Updates available
- If you find YouTube on the list, update it.
As well as updating the YouTube app, go to Settings → System → System Update to check if your phone is up-to-date. If not, download and install all pending updates.
Start the app and play some videos to see if the issue recur. Still no luck? Try the next solution!
Uninstall and reinstall the YouTube app.
If clearing the cache and updating the app to the latest version didn't do any trick, you may need to start afresh. Sometimes, the YouTube black screen problem on the phone could result from the app's incompatibility and other reasons. Nonetheless, you can always reinstall YouTube to fix the issue.
- Go to the Play Store
- Search for “YouTube” and click the official YouTube app from the result.
- Tap Uninstall to remove it from your phone.
- Once removed, tap the Install (or Update) button to reinstall it.
Fix your hanging Android phone
When talking about how to fix the black screen on YouTube for Android phones, we cannot underestimate the issue being caused by a hanging phone.
If your phone is hanging, or you are running way too many processes than what the system can handle, you may have a problem enjoying your YouTube video. However, fixing your hanging phone is pretty easy in some cases.
If you notice that your phone was not running well before the YouTube hiccup started, you can try the following:
- Close all running apps
- Free up your phone storage
- Uninstall obsolete and culprit apps
- Avoid heavy background tasks if your phone can’t handle them at once.
You can also check our complete guide on “Why your phone hangs and how to fix it” to resolve your hanging phone and fix the YouTube black screen problem.
Download YouTube videos
Well, if none of our tips on how to fix the YouTube app black screen on your phone worked for you, don't lose hope yet. Chances are the problem has to do with an issue with the YouTube app (hopefully it'll be updated soon!) or your phone can't just handle the app for now.
However, the only remedy left is to download your favorite videos on YouTube and watch them offline. Thankfully, there are various ways to do that.
Hint: Learn how to fix TECNO Phone can't download apps.
Although downloading videos offline might not be the best way to use YouTube, it solves the problem for now. And hopefully, the issue will be fixed on your device soon.
