A purple screen and distorted memories are what many Google Pixel users in Europe have been dealing with for more than a month now.

An issue stemmed in the Google Pixel User Community by Mike Fox on October 27 showed what appeared to be a major problem with the Pixel taking pictures with the Google Camera app. Snapped results would often end up with the frame “off-sync,” where a portion of the picture is shifted to the opposite side of where it should be. Bright magenta bars tint portions of the image as well.

All of this would frequently end up freezing the phone upon review.

After testing with third-party apps, complete data wipes, secondary units and further reports — many of them from the UK and Germany using the international Pixel SKU, though there was an isolated case with a US-bought Pixel XL on Verizon being used in Italy — along the thread were not able to pin down the problem for some time.

Then it was suggested that the problem could be related to how data reception is for any particular area. The risk is especially heightened in poorer 2G spots. Pictures taken on Airplane Mode did not cause the issue. At this point, we’re inclined to guess that automatic cloud backup may be a factor in causing the bug to show up though from further posts, it seems that geolocation tagging may be a bigger culprit.

The Pixel’s camera has also been affected by a “halo effect” caused by the glass. Google promised that a software update would remedy the issue. A software update that was sent to Canadian Pixel units may have the fix on this case, but it has not been sent to other regions that we know of.

MobileSyrup has contacted Google for a response to this issue.

Image: Dominik Naumer