Heads up: a recent Xbox Insider Program update pushed to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead tiers seems to be removing user profiles from Xbox systems, forcing users to re-add their profiles as if the system was brand new.
As reported by VGC and affirmed by number of insiders and users across social media, the update in question was added to systems as an optional download yesterday, but became mandatory late last night in the United States. It’s being pushed to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead tier users of the Xbox Insider Program, so if you’re not a part of that, you have nothing to worry about and this won’t affect you.
For those in that program, the update is mostly harmless, though it is annoying. It’s supposed to just be an update that fixes a minor user profile issue as well as an error impacting certain TV models. But instead, it’s effectively factory resetting people’s Xboxes.
Essentially, once the update is downloaded, it reverts the system back to its initial set-up protocol, which requires users to sign into their Xbox accounts again and go through various other settings menus as if they’ve just purchased the console for the first time. Once logged on, your games and other purchases should still be there. However, custom settings such as home screen wallpaper and quick resume data are unfortunately being wiped. Think of it like a factory reset.
Unfortunately, some users seem to be reporting that their consoles are stuck in an update loop where their consoles say there’s an update, but once it’s downloaded, the download fails and the console resets. This continues indefinitely. A few users are saying they eventually got the update to work after multiple failed attempts, but others still appear to be stuck.
So far no word from Xbox on how this happened, or when it might be fixed. If you’re in either of these programs, it’s probably best to just leave your Xbox alone for the time being. IGN has reached out to Xbox for comment.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
