Somehow, Xbox One's Black Screen of Death returned. A particularly nasty glitch that bricked a number Xbox One consoles several years ago before being fixed in an update has made its way back via the Xbox Insider Program.
The Black Screen of Death, for those who aren't aware, is effectively a lot like the Red Ring Of Death that plagued the Xbox 360 in its early days before hardware revisions stamped the problem out. While the two issues aren't exactly alike, the end result of both is the same: a whole lot of headaches, and the risk of a completely useless console. They didn't put "death" in the name for no reason.
The Xbox One's Black Screen of Death has been documented over the last few years on various Microsoft support forums. The issue predominately affects the more recent, slimmer Xbox One S model. It effectively causes the Xbox One dashboard to claim a game is corrupted, forcing the user into a restart. Unfortunately, upon turning the console back on, all players are met with is a black screen. A black screen of death.
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At the time, Microsoft discovered a fix: shut the console down completely, unplug for 10 seconds, and then plug it back in and turn it back on. This appeared to resolve a lot of the issues. But alas, it's returned more powerful than before.
As reported by Kotaku, Xbox One owners who are part of the Insider Program (a group that gets hold of certain updates and other features ahead of time) have booted up their consoles to be with the dreaded black screen. Even worse, the tried-and-tested method of unplugging and rebooting doesn't seem to be working.
Xbox has since informed those affected in a blog post that the issue can be fixed by performing a factory reset. Of course this completely erases all game data and saves from your console. Let this serve as a reminder to back all your data up now. It could happen to you next, after all.
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft/Disney