[Bug]: Windows 10 22H2 startup crash on Intel UHD Graphics; GPU workarounds leave playback stuck loading

[MaoMao-Kun]

Preflight Checklist

• I use the latest version of Pear Desktop (Application).
• I have searched the issue tracker for a bug report that matches the one I want to file, without success.
• I understand that pear-devs/pear-desktop has NO affiliation with Google or YouTube

Pear Desktop (Application) Version

3.11.0

Checklists

• I use the portable version of the Pear Desktop Application.
• I can reproduce this issue in the official version of (WEB) YTM.

What operating system are you using?

Windows

Operating System Version

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (build 19045.5917)

What CPU architecture are you using?

x64

Last Known Working Pear Desktop (Application) version

Unknown. I can reproduce this issue on 3.10.0 and 3.11.0.

Reproduction steps

1. Install and launch Pear Desktop 3.11.0 on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 x64.
2. Start the app normally.
3. The app immediately crashes on startup.
4. As a workaround, start the app with a GPU-related flag such as --disable-gpu-sandbox or --in-process-gpu so the window stays open.
5. Open any track and press Play.
6. The song never starts and the UI stays in an infinite loading state.

Expected Behavior

The application should launch normally and start playback without crashing or hanging.

Actual Behavior

On normal startup, the app crashes with a native Windows application error. During investigation I consistently saw:

• Windows Application Error for YouTube Music.exe
• Exception code: 0x80000003
• Chromium/Electron fatal message: GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.

If I force the app to stay open with GPU-related launch flags, the app window opens but playback still does not work. Songs stay in an infinite loading state and the console reports:

• The AudioContext encountered an error from the audio device or the WebAudio renderer.

Enabled plugins

1. video-toggle (mode: custom)
2. discord (enabled: true)
3. auth-proxy-adapter (enabled: true, local SOCKS proxy on 127.0.0.1:4545)
4. scrobbler (enabled: true)
5. precise-volume (default config)

Additional Information

• The issue is app-specific. The web version of YouTube Music works normally in Chrome with the same internet connection.
• I reproduced the playback failure with a clean profile as well, so this does not appear to be caused only by my personal plugin configuration.
• The playback issue still reproduced when switching the default Windows output device between a USB audio device and the built-in High Definition Audio Device.
• GPU on the machine: Intel UHD Graphics.
• Intel driver version observed during debugging: 31.0.101.2140.