[UPDATE] Chrome OS 96 rollout has been halted: here’s how to revert to 94 if you have issues

UPDATE 12/9/21 – A possible issue has been identified with Chrome OS 96 that indicates an issue with running many Play Store apps could be the reason for the update pause. You can follow the progress of the fix over a the Chromebook Help Forum as we await an actual fix for the issue. [Original story continues below]

While we’re all looking very forward to the arrival of Chrome OS 97 and the more-stable, more-frequent 4-week update schedule, we do really need Chrome OS 96 to fully land. Up until today this version has been in the slow process of rolling out after becoming technically available on December 1st. As of right now, it looks like that roll-out has ceased for the time being, and we’re not entirely sure as to why that is. We’ve reached out to our contacts at Google for any clarification and will update if we find out what exactly is going on.

For now, however, if you’ve not yet received the update to Chrome OS 96 and were continuing to attempt to update, you can give that a rest for the time being. According to cros.tech (a site that pulls from the official Google Omaha update server), all devices have been reverted back to Chrome OS 94 in the stable channel at this point.

What does that mean for you? Well, if you have Chrome OS 96 already and aren’t having issues, you don’t really need to do anything. If you have Chrome OS 94 and really want Chrome OS 96, you simply need to wait it out until Google has whatever issue that is causing the reversion cleaned up. Those who really need to take action are those who’s devices have upgraded to Chrome OS 96 and are having issues that are hurting the use of your device.

How to revert your Chromebook to the previous version

We’ve talked in the past about how you can go about rolling back your version of Chrome OS if necessary. While we don’t know the exact problem with Chrome OS 96, the issue must be big enough to warrant a stop in the rollout. Since that is the case and it is highly likely that there are some of you being plagued by whatver these issues are, we have a post you can check out (or watch the video above) that has a step-by-step guide on how to reset and revert your Chromebook to the previous version of Chrome OS. One caveat: your Chromebook will revert to the last version you had installed, so this all assumes you went from Chrome OS 94 to 96.

One of the options in the post and/or video will definitely get you back to Chrome OS 94 until all this is sorted. Again, we don’t know what is causing the pause and there’s a good chance that Chrome OS 96 will resume rolling out before we get an answer, but you just never know. There have been long pauses in the past that lasted weeks, so if Chrome OS 96 is giving you fits, take the steps above and get yourself back to a more-stable build until the smoke clears.