This YouTube video causes a strange screen glitch on the Pixel 7 Pro

Just because a new model of a flagship phone is launched doesn’t mean owners of the old model stop using their devices. Similarly, that doesn’t mean bugs aren’t still being discovered in these existing phones, and that’s now the case with the Google Pixel 7 Pro.

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Although it doesn’t appear to cause permanent damage, a YouTube video appears to be able to highlight a defect in the Pixel 7 Pro, as spotted by users on Reddit. This video, which features an audio tone playing at a frequency of 18,000 Hz, only causes a malfunction on this specific variant of the phone – Pixel 7 device owners are not experiencing the problem, only 7 Pro users. When the clip is played at full volume, a series of faint horizontal lines form along the right edge of the screen.

It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the defect is obvious in real life

If the video is played at low volume, the lines don’t seem to form and they also disappear when paused. One Redditor speculated that this issue is related to the device’s speakers — the low audio tone coming from the video could be affecting the phone’s 120Hz and/or 90Hz refresh rate. The issue is not affecting other Pixel 7 devices such as 7a, or the Pixel 7 standard, doesn’t even affect older or newer models like the Pixel 6 or Pixel 8. However, the fact that the video isn’t causing permanent damage may give device owners some peace of mind.

In our testing, we were able to replicate the issue on a Pixel 7 Pro. The lines are clearly visible in person, but harder to notice when captured on camera. In the images below, you can see the series of faint horizontal lines that resemble a waveform along the right side of the screen in the first image. We then turned off the audio and captured the second image, where the effect was not seen.

As Google moves forward and looks ahead to the launch of the Pixel 9, this is not the first flaw that has been spotted in previous models following the debut of a new flagship. For example, overheating has been a persistent problem on Pixel devices with various versions of Android. When Android 14 was first launched, it caused heat issues in earlier models. This led some to assume that performance issues were inevitable, but Android 14 was finally optimized to solve the problem. Google has been effective in quietly rolling out updates to address these types of bugs that arise. However, it is often not until some device users raise the alarm. No manufacturer is immune to glitches, but a lot can be gleaned from how they ultimately handle — or shut down — these glitches as they arise.