How to fix Black Ops Cold War “Blackout Trial has ended” bug on Xbox

Tanner Pierce

Following the Black Ops Cold War Season 1 prep update that went live on December 8, players on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X & S have started receiving a message starting that “Blackout Trial has ended,” which isn’t letting them log in. Fortunately, a fix has been found.

Currently, it’s unknown how many players are affected by the bug on Xbox. While the problem seems to be widespread, it’s unknown whether or not all players on the platform are receiving this game-breaking bug or if it’s only a select number.

Right now, this glitch seems to be showing up when certain Xbox players attempt to log-in to the game. After pressing all the prompts in the main menu after starting the application, players will be met with a screen that says “Blackout Trial has ended. Purchase the full game in order to unlock Blackout, Multiplayer, and Zombies.”

Obviously, Black Ops Cold War doesn’t have Blackout, all but confirming this is a left-over error from Black Ops 4, the only game in which the battle royale mode appeared in. This isn’t the first time BO4 assets have appeared in BOCW, with many players confirming that certain icons were carried over from that game.

Regardless of the reasoning, the fact of the matter is that it’s stopping Xbox players from logging into and enjoying Black Ops Cold War. That being said, it’s interesting to point out that, as of the time of this writing, it seems like this bug is only affecting Xbox players. PS4, PS5, and PC players have yet to report instances of this bug, at least on a wide-spread scale, that is.

Xbox responds to “Blackout Trial has ended” message

Several hours after the error surfaced, the official Xbox Twitter account announced that they were looking into the issue, which they followed up by saying that a fix had been found: installing any missing content.

Here’s what you need to do if you’re experiencing this problem:

  1. Click on Manage Game and Add-Ons
  2. Select Black Ops Cold War
  3. Install all content packs available for download
  4. Close out of the screen and restart the Black Ops Cold War application

We will, of course, update this article with any new information that gets released, so make sure to keep an eye on our Twitter, @Dexertointel, for all the latest.

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About The Author

Tanner is a former Dexerto games writer, who covered new releases, the biggest trending games, and guides for the trickiest challenges. He has a soft spot for 2020 hit Fall Guys, and a big fan of classic games too.