If you randomly received a bunch of test messages from the Xbox mobile app today, you didn’t do anything wrong. Many others, including myself, received the random spam messages this afternoon.
On February 25 at around 12:30 PM Eastern time, people with the Xbox app installed on their phone began receiving multiple test notifications in quick succession. I received eight such test messages, and all of mine featured the icon for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for some odd reason. Others online shared screenshots that showed even more messages than I received. Each message contained the following text:
“This is a dummy message sent via Braze, please capture a screenshot once you receive it. This should take you to the recently added gallery.”
A quick Google search seems to indicate that Braze is some sort of cross-platform social media and digital messaging platform used by a lot of different big companies. So it seems likely that the Xbox app is using Braze or is switching over to it, and something went wrong and now a bunch of people have random test messages spamming their home screen.
Kotaku has reached out to Xbox for comment. We only sent one email. Not seven.
The timing of this odd tech snafu couldn’t be worse for Xbox as the company is going through a big and reportedly messy shake-up, with longtime CEO Phil Spencer stepping down last week and a new AI-focused CEO taking over in his place. Some, including myself, have suggested this is the end of Xbox as we know it. That it might be dead. But I guess a dozen random messages in the afternoon proves it’s still alive. At least part of it.
Update: 2/25/26, 2:15 p.m. ET: An Xbox spokesperson pointed Kotaku to a post from the official Xbox account on Twitter. The company says the issue is “resolved now” and apologized for the spam. No explanation of what actually happened was given.
“The Xbox App got a little too enthusiastic with test notifications today. That’s on us, but it’s resolved now. Thanks for understanding, and we apologize for flooding your notifications,” said Xbox on social media.