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[winjer]

Windows 11 April update triggers "death loops" and bizarre pixelated crashes

It has been just five days since Microsoft released its April Patch Tuesday update (KB5083769) and already people are starting to report more issues on Microsoft's Learn Q&A pages. One that stood out was the update being suspected of creating a "death loop" for several users. It's unclear how many people are experiencing these death loops but aside from the poster, one commenter said they were having the same issue and so were three other people in their company.

The poster, who goes by the name Vagabond Superstar, said they attempted to install the Patch Tuesday update for April, but their PC got stuck in a "death loop" (similar to the bug on Windows Server perhaps) where the screen shows a "mosaic of weird pixels" followed by a blue screen saying that Windows needs to be recovered. The user was then given an option to retry, but after attempting this, the computer went into a boot loop where it kept giving the message that it was attempting to repair the issue, then it would loop back through the pixelated screens.

Vagabond Superstar notes that their PC is a HP Pavillion 590-p0044. It has an AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080ti GPU, and is running Windows 11 Home. Another commenter, who goes by the name "L M", said they're having exactly the same problem on a Dell Desktop and describes the pixelated screen and repairs similar to what the original poster said they experienced.

The final commenter to report the same issue was Thomas B who said they've been experiencing the same thing and so are another three people in their company who are no longer able to boot into Windows, potentially preventing them from accessing important work documents. Thomas B noted that they were able to uninstall the latest "Quality" update and get back into their system, but one of the users had a recovery environment that was so broken, they couldn't get back into their system.

It isn't clear if this issue is being caused directly by Microsoft or if there is some common driver or software issue affecting all of these users. Microsoft's Q&A Assist, which is AI-generated, says that similar issues have been documented when a cumulative/security update corrupts boot-critical components or drivers, especially on some AMD-based systems.

 

[Bojji]

Yeah, on LTSC I avoid this bullshit. Fuck them.

Maybe I will return to 11 Pro with 26H2 version but they REALLY have to impress me with it.

 

[winjer]

Windows 11 KB5089549 Update Causes Boot Loops on Low ESP Systems

Microsoft has officially confirmed that the Windows 11 May 2026 cumulative update KB5089549 triggered installation failures and infinite reboot loops on some systems due to insufficient space in the EFI System Partition (ESP). The mandatory security update was automatically distributed through Windows Update, but many users reported that installations stalled around 35% to 36% completion before Windows attempted to reverse the process. Affected systems commonly displayed rollback messages such as "Not proceeding as planned, reversing changes" before returning to the desktop. In more severe situations, systems became trapped in continuous reboot cycles that prevented Windows from loading normally. Users also reported encountering error code 0x800f0922 during the failed installation process. The root cause was traced to limited free capacity inside the EFI System Partition, a hidden storage partition used to contain Windows bootloader files and firmware-related startup data. Many systems ship with EFI partitions sized at roughly 100MB, which can become problematic over time as firmware files, recovery data, and additional boot configurations consume available space.

Dual-boot systems running Linux alongside Windows appear particularly vulnerable because multiple operating systems share the same boot partition. Microsoft also acknowledged that some OEM firmware updates may leave behind larger files inside the ESP, reducing free capacity below the threshold required for the KB5089549 installation process. Microsoft stated that it has already deployed a corrective fix that will automatically apply to consumer PCs and unmanaged enterprise devices. According to the company, most systems should successfully complete the repair after several reboots without requiring manual partition resizing or advanced disk management procedures. For users already stuck inside a reboot loop, Microsoft recommends entering the Windows Recovery Environment to restore the system and complete the repair process. The revised version of KB5089549 reportedly resolves the EFI partition-related installation behavior moving forward. The incident highlights an ongoing issue with aging EFI partition layouts created years ago under much smaller storage requirements. Modern Windows security updates, combined with increasingly large firmware payloads from hardware vendors, continue to place additional pressure on limited reserved boot partition space.

While Microsoft's automated fix should minimize long-term impact, the problem adds another example of Windows Update deployment complications affecting consumer systems shortly after release.

 

[Shockwave_Fox]

Damn, Ive been back on Windows a while now - need to make sure I've set my updates to be delayed by at least a week.