Subject: Feedback: PiP YouTube video opens new Brave instance instead of resuming (Galaxy S24 FE)

Hi Brave team,

Love the browser—fast, private, and the ad-blocking is a game-changer. Here’s a quirky bug I keep running into on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE:

Open a YouTube video in Brave.

Enter full-screen.

Exit the app (home button or gesture).

→ Video shrinks to Picture-in-Picture (PiP) — works perfectly.

Tap the Brave icon on the home screen to return.

Expected: Resume the existing browser session (all tabs intact, PiP still active).

Actual: Brave launches a brand-new instance — no tabs, no history. The PiP video remains on screen, but its tab is gone. The original session disappears from recent apps while PiP is active.

Additional notes:

This only happens when relaunching via the app icon during PiP.

The original session reappears in recent apps only after expanding the PiP window.

Swiping up to recent apps, Brave card is not there!

Weird twist:

If I repeat the full process from the new instance (open YouTube → full-screen → exit → PiP → tap Brave icon again), I’m magically sent back to the original session with all tabs restored. It’s like toggling between two parallel universes! :exploding_head:

Would love to see the app icon resume the existing task instead of spawning a fresh one. Kinda funny the first time, but annoying daily. :rofl:

Thanks for the awesome browser—keep up the great work!

Cheers,

Mreza

Device: Galaxy S24 FE

OS: Android 16 (Build BP2A.250605.031.A3)

Brave: 1.83.120 (Chromium 141.0.7390.122)

Yeah I’m seeing this too and it’s super weird! Thanks for reporting this. Going to ask Android team about this and will file an issue for it shortly.

I’ve opened the following issue for this on our Github: