Problem started May 11, 2022. When YouTube switches to the next video in one of my playlists the webpage freezes for about 25-40 seconds. It doesn’t freeze the whole browser, just that tab. YouTube tab process spikes in Task Manager. It happens in both MS Edge and Google Chrome on multiple machines running Windows 10 and 11. Tried hard refreshing page (CTRL+F5); cleared browser cache; tested on another machine; disabled shuffle, nothing worked. The only workaround I’ve found is to hide the playlist pane on the right.
As soon as I un-hid the playlist pane the problem came back. Re-hide it goes away.