The situation at hand is quite tumultuous, as Chrome OS faces another device-crashing bug in the same month. Ever since the latest update rolled out, many reports have been coming in, explaining to fellow Chromebook users why they shouldn’t update their devices. Unfortunately, it appears that version 91.0.4472.165 is affected and is stopping people from logging in after the system restarts.
Last time, the reported version was 91.0.4472..147, which rendered “hatch” and “grunt” board Chromebooks practically unusable. Google was quick to address the issue, but the good news was short-lived. It turned out that the bug-crushing update actually took the functionality of Linux with it, making it impossible to install the penguin-driven operating system on Chrome OS.
Now, however, it seems that the bug seeping into the stable channel update release is no less than nasty, and the best possible solution right now is Powerwashing your Chromebook. That doesn’t come without a cost, though, and you will have to sacrifice your locally saved files present on the device. Nevertheless, if you’ve got everything hooked to the cloud, you might as well proceed with that measure.
If your Chromebook isn’t even letting you get to the lock screen and is continuously restarting, you can use the Chromebook Recovery Utility tool for breathing new life into your device. Not sure how to do that? Check out this article for a step-by-step guide.
Some people’s Chromebooks require a manually inputted restart for the update to fully install and take effect. If you see a notification saying, “Restart to update Chrome OS” or something similar, do NOT do that since it can potentially wreck your Chromebook.
In light of the issue at hand, many people are formulating the opinion that Chromebooks should have an option to stop updates from downloading automatically, similar to what Windows has. A feature like this would pay off quite nicely, as many Windows users have been able to avoid buggy, damage-causing updates through it.
That said, all this debacle is unusual for an operating system that is this stable and secure. Over the years, Chromebooks have had the privilege of successfully retaining their image as exceedingly protected and smooth laptops. Still, we’re afraid that statement might not hold anymore if issues like these keep up. We’re definitely not wagering on the latter and only hoping that the development team gets to this catastrophe sharpish.
If you’re on a Chromebook that’s not affected in any way, a contribution would be filing a feedback report to Google by pressing the “Shift + Alt + i” keys together on your device. This would bring up a dedicated window to state this issue and request the developers to take immediate action.
Reporting the issue to Google
