About the Bug Causing Microsoft Edge Windows to Turn Black

According to Microsoft’s schedule, Microsoft Edge updates are shipped daily for the Canary build, weekly for the Developer version, and every six weeks for the beta.

But it goes without saying that all these versions are preview builds that allow you to try out new features before they are included in the production version of the browser, so every now and then, some of these improvements don’t work properly.

More recently, an issue in Microsoft Edge is causing all browser windows to become black all of a sudden, obviously making it impossible to continue navigating the web.

Judging from user posts, this behavior happens at random times during the browsing session. When it happens, all windows turn black, and nothing else beside the menus is rendered properly.

In the previous versions of Microsoft Edge, closing the browser and re-opening it did the trick, but some said that only rebooting the device actually restored the normal behavior.

The problem is caused by a graphics compatibility error with Microsoft Edge, so it doesn’t happen on all devices, but only on those with the affected hardware. Microsoft hasn’t provided more specifics on which hardware might cause such issues.

Fixes for this problem have already been included in the latest updates for Microsoft Edge, but as it turns out, the issue is yet to be completely resolved, and some are still experiencing the same black window problem at random times.

This time, the software giant says it’s enough to just open the browser task manager to kill the GPU process, after which everything should be back to normal. In other words, you no longer have to interrupt your browsing session, although it goes without saying that killing off the GPU process occasionally isn’t really the most convenient thing to do in a browser.

“After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black. UI popups like menus are not affected and opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process usually fixes it. Note that this only appears to affect users with certain hardware,” Microsoft says.

To launch the Microsoft Edge browser, follow these steps in the application:

The latest Microsoft Edge builds also come with a separate security issue that causes tabs to fail to load. This, however, isn’t caused by graphics drivers, but by security software running on the device, and Microsoft says that it’s already working with the vendors whose applications do not play nice with Microsoft Edge to resolve it. No names have been provided though.

“Users of certain security software packages will see all tabs fail to load with the error STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION. The only supported way to prevent this behavior is to uninstall that software. We’re currently engaging with the developers of that software to test a potential fix, which we hope to bring to Dev and Canary soon,” the company explains.

Thanks to the migration to the Chromium engine, Microsoft Edge is now available on both Windows and macOS, but the aforementioned issues only exist on Microsoft’s operating system. Most likely, additional fixes will be included in the next few updates, which will land according to the company release schedule (new Dev updates are expected in the coming weeks).