A nasty and persistent glitch is bricking Xbox One consoles with a black screen, and most of the players affected are part of the Xbox Insider program. Gamers might be reminded of the Xbox 360’s infamous “Red Ring Of Death,” which ruined countless consoles during the 360’s early days before it was eventually remedied in later models.
Meanwhile, the Xbox One had its own system-breaking issue with the “Black Screen Of Death,” which players have reported on Microsoft support forums during the last couple of years. Largely documented on the slimmer Xbox One S model, this glitch would cause the Xbox One’s Dashboard to say that a certain game was corrupted, prompting the user to restart their console with the standard “turn off and back on again” method. However, when they would turn their Xbox One back on, all they would get is a black screen, hence the name “Black Screen Of Death.” Microsoft advised those suffering from this issue to power cycle their Xbox One (shutting the console off, unplugging it for 10 seconds, then plugging it back in and turning it back on), seemingly resolving the problem once and for all - or so it seemed.
According to Kotaku, new reports of Xbox One owners suffering from the “Black Screen Of Death” have started to spread across social media. Players have powered up their Xbox One consoles only to find a dark void staring back at them – and the usual remedy of unplugging and re-plugging their systems isn’t working this time. Microsoft has since addressed this “Black Screen Of Death” problem in a recent Xbox.com blog post, telling affected players that it can be fixed by performing a factory reset - which unfortunately wipes all game data and saves from memory.
One odd wrinkle is that this issue seems to mostly affect beta-level members of the Xbox Insider Program, with many suspecting that it was sparked by a patch that was put out on August 13. This member-based program allows members to test out new Xbox features before they hit the larger gaming community, such as a recently demoed Xbox Night Mode that allows users to toggle the amount of blue light their Xbox consoles display while gaming at night. Aside from this, Xbox Insider members were given reserve access to the Xbox Series X when it launched last November.
Given the amount of time and effort users put into playing games on their Xbox One consoles, having to wipe their system’s memory with a factory reset is a hefty price to pay for fixing this newest iteration of the “Black Screen Of Death.” Microsoft has announced that it has addressed the issue, so hopefully, Xbox Insider members will be able to enjoy their Xbox One machines without fear of everything going dark after a restart.