PC Drivers & Software

[kaminari]

Since installing Radeon driver 23.9.2, I regularly encounter freezes with Chromium browsers (Google/Microsoft) when opening new tabs or clicking on links, especially YouTube. Those freezes can last for several seconds during which the OS (mouse included) is entirely unresponsive. The problem is triggered quicker if I'm running Steam in the background.

I have 32 GB of RAM and a Navi 23 (RX 6650 XT). I suspect a VRAM leak. Reverting to 23.8.2 fixes the bug.

Note: 23.9.2 was installed via the AMD auto-install tool (first time I wanted to try it) and reading other similar bug reports, it could be that the tool actually installed the Vega driver instead of the Navi one. I didn't check myself as I don't want to try again.

[kaminari · Accepted solution]

Well it didn't last long. Freezing bugs reappeared during a random browsing session.

The Polaris/RDNA installation snafu was just tangential. In my situation, what seems to be the real culprit between driver 23.9.2 and the Chromium-based browsers is their hardware acceleration option in Settings > System. After disabling it (I had it on for years without issues), the freezes have stopped. Enabling it again makes the freezes come back. Firefox is unaffected in my case (but I read other people are encountering this problem).

I will continue monitoring this situation in case driver 23.9.2 has other side effects.

[kaminari]

I bit the bullet and tried the 23.9.2 stand-alone package (which filename was changed from -polaris.exe to -rdna.exe). First install attempt ended into the dreaded 1603 error message ("a general error has occurred"). I brute-forced the installation a second time and it finally worked.

So far after 2 hours of using simultaneously Steam and Google Chrome, it seems the freezing bug has disappeared. I can only guess that the initial 23.9.2 driver delivery was messed up and the Polaris/Vega package was wrongly distributed on all driver support pages. Not sure why AMD decided to drop the universal driver, but their quality check is very poor.

Either way, DO NOT use the auto-installer! Lesson learned.

[Qoojo]

The original download was 1.2gb and had "-combined" at end, and like you say, the download is now back to 640mb and "-rdna" at end. Somebody messed up. Additionally, some people report that the complete wrong file was linked for older series.

Not sure I would blame the auto installer more the blame dumb errors on payload and packaging. I do think it is good advice to get and install the package yourself.

I noticed chromium after startup when displaying the very first page will freeze for a second where mouse cursor is unresponsive. It's only happened twice so i figured it was a browser update check or something.

[kaminari · Accepted solution]

Well it didn't last long. Freezing bugs reappeared during a random browsing session.

The Polaris/RDNA installation snafu was just tangential. In my situation, what seems to be the real culprit between driver 23.9.2 and the Chromium-based browsers is their hardware acceleration option in Settings > System. After disabling it (I had it on for years without issues), the freezes have stopped. Enabling it again makes the freezes come back. Firefox is unaffected in my case (but I read other people are encountering this problem).

I will continue monitoring this situation in case driver 23.9.2 has other side effects.

[Brian48]

FF does the same thing as Chrome.  Just not as often.  I've disabled HW acceleration in all my browsers.  Not a big deal as you'll never notice any of the advantages.  

[Darmach]

I have the same experience with both 23.9.2 and yesterdays 23.9.3.

Total lags up to a point of unresponsiveness in chrome.
Rollback to 23.9.1 solves it.

9800XT

[lavisa]

Same issue with 6750 XT.

[Middcore]

OK, it's not just me. I was trying different mice and so forth trying to figure out what was going on. 

[Allie009]

I had this exact same issue. I rolled back to 23.9.1. Both .2 and .3 have this problem.

And this just doesn't happen in Chromium browsers. I encountered this issue when I was browsing Steam and organizing my games into categories.

Also, usually, when updating drivers, it requires a restart, but it didn't say that for either driver updates.

AMD needs to fix this ASAP.

My GPU is the 6950 XT.

Edit: I disabled hardware acceleration in all of my browsers as well. And on Steam, I turned off "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views". Then updated to the latest drivers. Hope this issue never happens again.

[Matt_AMD · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the posts, however we already have an existing topic on this issue. We are currently investigating, and will update the thread below when we have more information to share. 

Please use the thread below to track status updates and to provide your feedback going forward. 

https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/freezes-and-black-screen-when-browing-and-watching-vid...