The likely cause for 90+% of these issues is software. If you haven't yet done it, do a diagnostic reboot - in the car, doors closed, car off, foot off the brake, press the Start button rapidly 3 times. This will put the car in Diagnostic Mode (confirmed by a pop-up in the instrument cluster). Press the Volume Control scroller until the main screen goes blank, then release. After the system completely reboots, turn off the car, exit and lock. Return in an hour, restart and see if the issue is resolved - if not, possibly a hardware fault and dealer visit, but at least try a software reset first

 

First, my control display functioned as normal now.
Break down the probability of each scenario that might cause control display stay dark:
1. 35% chance. During the time when the touch screen stayed dark, I did all of the suggestions above and it didn't help. The screen came back after I turned on/off the windshield AC with physical buttons. Altough it could easily be interpreted as heat related issues causing lcd to be deactivated as stated in the manual, the reality is that the ambient temperature was only 78F, significantly lower than average temperature the car has endured when it is under the sunlight outside while parking/driving.
2. 25% chance. Of course, it is possible that software didn't boot correctly and was interrupted by a misread sensor. Hard reboot solved the problem in the background slowly and reset the sensors, but it didn't show immediately result. The AC cooling is just a misleading side effect.
3. 15% chance. There are many uncaught exception thrown in iDrive code. Over the time, they piled up on the memory stack and eventually crashed the iDrive UI and might corrupt the linux filesystem/swap. A hard reboot should clear the RAM IMMEDIATELY and filesystem repair (fsdk) takes extend time. The delay effect from rebooting indicated that.
4. 15% chance. iDrive to cloud communication glitch. As system woke up and initiated contact with the server, it might get stuck in a limbo due to weak signal or infrastructure changed since last awakening. Since this was the first occurrence and worked flawlessly in the past, I doubt my garage has bad 5G issues. After the screen came back, I noticed a new icon appeared in the notification draw area. It makes me think BMW is in transition to AWS as we speak.

What does this icon mean?

www.ixforums.com

5. 10% chance. Other unkown scenarios or a warranty request due to broken parts. The control display stayed dark for about 30 min or less. During that time, I can still drive the car if needed or interact with any physical buttons. I cound't interact with the touch screen. Since I don't have a OBDII for iX, I won't completely rule out bad parts, but I think it's very unlikely since everything works as normal now.

 

Good that it's back! Assessing your percentages, I'd say #2 is about 99+%, and the other 1% evenly distributed. This - almost - exact problem has been reported multiple times on the iX forums (I've experienced it myself), and on previous X5 models (also experienced). A software reset and sleep cycle almost universally resolved it. Ergo, hung software with an identical cause, for whatever undecipherable reason. The odd "didn't work" scenario was invariably a faulty TCU.

 

2 years old, 20,000 miles, 2023 iX. After the car had been parked a couple of hours, started it up again, but the right hand screen was off/black/dark. Dash showed a code with a yellow ! but the code disappeared before I could tell what it was. Pulled over, shut off car, restarted, no change. Drove home without further incident, no driving issues, everything normal except had to use steering wheel controls and center console controls. After driving for about 15 minutes, all of a sudden the control screen lit up and everything reappeared!! It has not happened again in the week since. Any ideas what happened?

 

Happens to me, too, occasionally. The touchscreen has to reboot itself sometimes and will come back on after about 15 mins of driving or a start/stop cycle. The last time it happened, I hit the START button before the instrument cluster was finished with its animation and the touchscreen stayed dark. I'm not sure if there is a trigger or if it's random.

 

Sounds like a one-off software glitch and reboot.

 

If there was a recent software update or one of my settings was recently changed, you might be guessing correctly. Neither was true. Could be sunspot activity or other unexplainable or unverifiable guesses! A loose wire from some sensor? Sure. But if a loose wire, this should continue to randomly happen with increasing frequency. If a software glitch, why didn't the reboot happen when I shut off the car and restarted? I purchased a BMW in part because of the BMW reputation for German Engineering. This is my wife's car and must be reliable or I need to find a replacement.

Thanks for the theory, @exxxviii ! Anyone else? During WWII, they called random unexplainable glitches "Gremlins"... In the 60's, they were called "bugs"....

 

If there was a recent software update or one of my settings was recently changed, you might be guessing correctly. Neither was true. Could be sunspot activity or other unexplainable or unverifiable guesses! A loose wire from some sensor? Sure. But if a loose wire, this should continue to randomly happen with increasing frequency. If a software glitch, why didn't the reboot happen when I shut off the car and restarted? I purchased a BMW in part because of the BMW reputation for German Engineering. This is my wife's car and must be reliable or I need to find a replacement.

Thanks for the theory, exxxviii! Anyone else? During WWII, they called random unexplainable glitches "Gremlins"... In the 60's, they were called "bugs"....

Almost every computer device will experience occasional lock-up and reboots (this is normal on a Mac, PC, iPhone, etc.) Every modern car I have owned since late 2000s has had an infotainment lock-up and reboot every year or two. This is "normal" for complex computer devices. Now, if it occurs again in a short timeframe, it could be a thing... I would wait for another occurrence and forget about it until then.

 

Mine just did this today and, for the first time ever, did not start up after a few minutes of driving. Last drove the car yesterday late afternoon and did charge overnight. Scenario: Unlocked vehicle and unplugged, got in and "started" car, no Control Display screen, but it was definitely "on", because I could see where the control screen and the blank frame were different, though ever so slightly. Turned vehicle off, got out and locked it. Unlocked it and got back in and pressed Start, same thing. No change on the 3 miles/13 minute drive to the office. Locked it in the garage and will see what happens when I go home. It has done this one other time (8,500 miles currently, 2024 with 6/2023 build/7/2023 delivery), but came on about 2 minutes into my drive. Interestly, though the screen was blank, I noticed CarPlay show up on my phone and when I opened SXM and selected a channel, it came through the vehicle speakers.

 

I've had this problem intermittently and don't know of any official fix. Doing a diagnostic reboot does not appear to resolve this issue, for me at least. The last time it happened a few months ago, it resolved itself after sleeping for an hour or so. This issue has not reoccured since I used the "reset vehicle data" function to resolve a non-responsive navigation system that showed "Navigation Loading" message on the screen. Since performing the vehicle data reset—which restores it to mfg new state—the issue has not reoccurred. But that could also be a coincidence.

If you do reset your vehicle data, you will need to delete and re-add your phone keys and re-link your MyBMW profile.