Google Chrome has been a broken, buggy mess on several OnePlus phones since late last year

Despite OxygenOS being one of the cleanest, feature-rich Android fork out there, even it is not immune to random hiccups. Several OnePlus devices appear to be afflicted by a problem that renders them unusable due to Chrome and Android Webview not working on the phones.

Since late last year, users have complained about the problem, with scattered reports coming in now and then at regular intervals. A common theme among the complainants is that the phone becomes unresponsive after a minute or so of web browsing on both the Chrome app and Android Webview. The problem appears to be independent of the model and spans across a wide range of OnePlus phones. It is also noteworthy that all of them run Android 10.

Neither Google nor OnePlus seem to have figured out the root cause of the problem. However, the chances of it being something wrong with the latter seem higher, as Chrome and Android Webview seem to have no troubles working on other devices. Google changed the Android Webview client to Chrome following Android Nougat and switched it back to a new client called Trichrome on Android 10, so the problem could lie with Trichrome and Chrome not working in tandem with each other.

Until both companies acknowledge and address the issue, the only workable fix is to avoid using Android Webview and Chrome altogether. One can disable Android Webview via the Settings app on the phone, and use a browser other than Chrome as default. Disabling Android Webview is not ideal, as it can severely affect how apps handle third-party links. Unfortunately, that appears to be the only way out until OnePlus and Google roll out a fix.