Google Chrome to blame for MacBook crashes

If your brand new MacBook Air has been crashing a lot lately, Google's Chrome browser might have something to do with it. Search giant acknowledged in a statement to Gizmodo that a graphics resource leak is leading to kernel panics on Macs with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics. However, it added that it not possible for an application to trigger such behaviour, so it has filed a bug report with Apple to find the real reason of the issue.

"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," company noted in a statement.

Till the time the existing issue is resolved, Google has temporarily disabled some of Chrome's GPU acceleration features via an auto-updated release.