If your Chromebook started misbehaving this week, here's why

Don't you have three channels of testing to prevent these kinds of things, Google?

What you need to know

• Chrome OS's 91.0.4472.147 update seemed to have hobbled many users on a variety of models over the last few days.
• Google has since pulled the update and reverted users to 91.0.4472.114 instead, but it's made Linux unusable instead.
• A fixed update should hopefully roll out soon, but if you're on an impacted model, please don't powerwash or reset it, especially if you use Linux regularly.

Chromebook updates aren't strangers to bugs, but the bugs that arrived with Chrome OS 91.0.4472.147 were an absolute doozy to many models with certain Chrome boards. Boards are the core hardware platform of a Chromebook, a single board type can be used by multiple manufacturers to simplify coding and testing on Google's end. The boards primarily impacted by .147's update are:

Grunt board

• Acer Chromebook 311 (C721)
• Acer Chromebook Spin 311 (R721T)
• Acer Chromebook 315
• HP Chromebook 11A G6 EE
• HP Chromebook 14 (db00 series)
• Lenovo 100e and 300e 2nd Gen (AMD)

Hatch board

• Acer Chromebook 712
• ASUS Chromebook Flip C436
• Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook
• Samsung Galaxy Chromebook
• Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2

While the models in Grunt are budget models primarily used in schools — and less likely to be used during the summer — the Hatch models are mostly mid to high-end Chromebooks that are used quite heavily, and any lag or overclocking on the original Galaxy Chromebook is going to be a bad time between its thin build and mediocre-at-best battery life.

Other models have reported some issues, too, so here's what to do if you're seeing it on yours:

1. Press Alt + Shift + i and include "issue 1226037" in your feedback and description of the issue.
2. If you frequently use Linux, you can upgrade to the Beta channel, but be warned that updating to beta isn't solving the issue for everyone.
3. If you don't use Linux, check for updates on the About Chrome OS screen in the Settings app. Google pulled the .147 update and will instead push the previous .114 update to your machine.
4. Regardless of which solution you use, don't bother Powerwashing your Chromebook, it won't do anything to improve performance, it'll just waste a few minutes of your time setting your apps back up and logging back into your websites. If you're a Linux user and you powerwash or revert to .114, Chrome Unboxed reports you won't be able to enable Linux if you didn't already have it already set up on the machine.

Google is aware of the problem and working on a solution, which should hopefully arrive sooner than later. If your Chromebook is still on .114, good news! You don't have to deal with this because Google has pulled the .147 update so that more users aren't auto-updated into misery.