Edge browser black screen bug

Question

Edge browser black screen bug

Ivy Yang 5

When using Microsoft Edge, the screen occasionally goes black for one second and then recovers. The issue persists even after turning off graphics hardware acceleration.

After disabling all system‑related and performance‑related options, if I open 10 web pages, wait for 3 minutes, and then quickly close all of them, a one‑second black screen occurs 100% of the time.

Hope Microsoft can fix this bug in Edge as soon as possible. Thank you!

Ivy Yang 5 Reputation points

2026-08-09T09:27:17.2933333+00:00
I conducted several tests in response to the AI's answer, and the test results are as follows:

The screen goes black for one second, with no crash logs recorded under edge://crashes.

I tried using a temporary profile, resetting browser settings, disabling hardware acceleration and re-enabling it separately; the screen still blacks out for one second when closing 10 web pages in quick succession in all cases.

After disabling GPU rasterization and Accelerated 2D canvas via edge://flags/, the one-second black screen issue persists when rapidly closing 10 web pages.

Adding the launch argument --disable-gpu to Edge does not resolve the problem either — the screen still turns black for a second upon quickly closing 10 tabs.

No such black screen issue occurs at all when I use alternative browsers such as 360 Extreme Browser.

Edge remains my preferred browser over other options. I hope Microsoft will fix this critical bug at the earliest opportunity. Thank you!

2 answers

Your answer

Ivy Yang 5 Reputation points

2026-08-09T09:27:17.2933333+00:00

I conducted several tests in response to the AI's answer, and the test results are as follows:

The screen goes black for one second, with no crash logs recorded under edge://crashes.

I tried using a temporary profile, resetting browser settings, disabling hardware acceleration and re-enabling it separately; the screen still blacks out for one second when closing 10 web pages in quick succession in all cases.

After disabling GPU rasterization and Accelerated 2D canvas via edge://flags/, the one-second black screen issue persists when rapidly closing 10 web pages.

Adding the launch argument --disable-gpu to Edge does not resolve the problem either — the screen still turns black for a second upon quickly closing 10 tabs.

No such black screen issue occurs at all when I use alternative browsers such as 360 Extreme Browser.

Edge remains my preferred browser over other options. I hope Microsoft will fix this critical bug at the earliest opportunity. Thank you!

Answer 1

Use this order and test after each change:

End all existing Edge processes
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager.
- End every msedge.exe task.
- Restart Edge and reproduce the close-all-tabs scenario.
Use a temporary Edge profile to isolate profile corruption
- Open Command Prompt and run:
```
   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --user-data-dir="%TEMP%\edge-test-profile"
```
- If the black-screen behavior does not occur with the test profile, the original profile is likely the cause.
- In that case, close Edge, go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data, rename Default to Default.old, then start Edge to create a fresh profile.
- Risk: this resets the active Edge profile state. Bookmarks and other data may need to be copied back manually from Default.old.
Turn off all extensions
- Go to edge://extensions/.
- Turn off all extensions and test again.
- If the issue stops, re-enable extensions one at a time to find the trigger.
Check background activity
- Go to edge://settings/system.
- Turn off Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed.
- Test whether rapidly closing many tabs still triggers the black screen.
Reset Edge settings
- Go to edge://settings/reset.
- Select Restore settings to their default values.
- This preserves bookmarks, history, and saved passwords, but resets pinned tabs, startup page, search engine, and extensions.
Repair Microsoft Edge
- Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps.
- Select Microsoft Edge > Modify > Repair.
- This is the recommended next step when the problem continues after profile and settings isolation.
Collect diagnostics if the issue continues
- Edge version: edge://version or edge://settings/help
- Browser Task Manager screenshots: press Shift+Esc, capture one sorted by CPU and one by Memory
- Crash data: edge://crashes
- Discarded tabs report: edge://discards
- In Event Viewer, export Application Error events for msedge.exe from Windows Logs > Application

Since hardware acceleration is already disabled and the issue is reproducible when closing many tabs quickly, the most relevant next checks are a temporary profile, extensions off, reset settings, and then Repair.

Answer 2

Thomas4-N 21,535 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello Ivy Yang,

Thank you for testing the suggested steps and sharing the detailed results. Since the issue persists with a temporary profile and with the GPU-related options disabled, there may not be any further useful troubleshooting to try here.

Please report this through Edge > Help and feedback > Send feedback, or press Alt+Shift+I. Include the exact reproduction steps, your Edge version, Windows build, graphics driver version, and a screen recording if possible. This will send the report to the Edge development team for investigation.

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