It wouldn’t be a next-gen console release if there wasn’t some sort of “blahdy blah of death” for people to get angry about. For the Xbox One, it’s something called the Black Screen of Death, which was unfortunately a result of a recent patch.
Gamers all over the internet are noting that a new glitch has been plaguing the Xbox One after the latest system update. It causes the screen to go black after the console powers on. At that point, basically nothing you do makes the system operate, and turning it off and on again simply makes it boot back to the black screen.
Microsoft has responded to the error with a temporary workaround. If you power cycle your Xbox One, the black screen problem should go away. To power cycle your box, simply hold the power button down for 10 seconds in order to completely cut the power, and then turn it back on again. This does tend to fix the black screen issue, at least temporarily, but certain users are reporting that it is coming back after a while.
For now, it’s still not clear what has caused the Black Screen of Death. The latest Xbox one update added USB keyboard support and a battery power indicator to the U.I. and neither of those seem like they would interfere with the booting process. It also improved “storage space management” which could factor into the error, but Microsoft isn’t saying much. Some users are saying that this error effects people with launch day Xbox Ones more than others, but this claim has not yet been verified by Microsoft. Another major Xbox One update is going to come in early March, right before Titanfall hits store shelves. It’s likely we will see this error fixed then.
On the upside, the Black Screen of Death isn’t really very “of death.” It doesn’t affect your data, nor does it seem to harm your system in any way, aside from locking you out from using it until you go through a full power cycle. On the downside, the Xbox One was basically designed to always operate in a suspended sleep mode, so the need to power cycle every so often is a little annoying.
Let us know if the Black Screen of Not So Much Death has affected your Xbox One in the comments, and be on the lookout for more news on Xbox One updates.