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Owners of the new MacBook Air have been complaining that their shiny new laptops are crashing when using Google’s Chrome web browser – Google conceded today that it is their web browser that is the causing issue, but actually blames Apple.
It seems the world’s most popular web browser isn’t playing nice with the new paper-thin Airs and is causing a serious kernel error which is forcing users to fully reboot their laptops.
Google has held their hands up and admitted to the issue, but has stated the issue was with Apple and is nothing to do with their software. The search engine giant released a statement confirming the issue and outlines what they’ve done to temporarily fixed the problem from their end.
“We have identified a leak of graphics resources in the Chrome browser related to the drawing of plugins on Mac OS X. Work is proceeding to find and fix the root cause of the leak.
“The resource leak is causing a kernel panic on Mac hardware containing the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip (e.g. the new Macbook Airs). Radar bug number 11762608 has been filed with Apple regarding the kernel panics, since it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.
“While the root cause of the leak is being fixed, we are temporarily disabling some of Chrome’s GPU acceleration features on the affected hardware via an auto-updated release that went out this afternoon (Thursday June 28). We anticipate further fixes in the coming days which will re-enable many or all of these features on this hardware.”
It’s not an ideal solution as GPU acceleration is a important feature for a web browser, as it helps to load graphically rich websites faster. Affected users have obviously taken to social networks and forums to blast both companies for their inability to get the problem solved.
Some users have had some success in fixing the problem by installing the latest developer version of Google Chrome – our advice would be to start using an alternative web browser until Apple rectifies the solution with a software update.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
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