Google’s ill-fated tablet model just got even more unpopular.

When the Pixel Slate launched in 2018, it was chock full of irritating bugs and weird usage quirks brought about by its Chrome OS. Folks who paid at launch (and a decent amount at that) weren’t happy, and Google had to do some pretty sizable damage control to get things tolerably usable. Google doesn’t even sell these unfortunate things anymore, at least not on their own, but even in product purgatory, it seems the Pixel Slate has found a new way to cause Google ire.

According to a report from AndroidPolice, numerous Slate users have been reporting catastrophic memory failure in their devices. The damage starts small, with some minor errors and the occasional app crash, but then quickly escalates to full-on disk-writing failure, which completely prevents a user from opening apps or accessing files. Rebooting the device can temporarily solve the problem, but it seems once your Slate has the sickness, it’s down with it for good.

Tech-heads have theorized this problem to be a result of faulty flash memory. This means that this isn’t a problem that could be solved with a patch or update from Google. Software can be fixed remotely, but when hardware fries, there’s no way to fix it short of gutting the device and replacing the faulty part, and even that might not fix it if the damage is too far-spreading.

A flash storage failure is rendering some Pixel Slates useless just two years after launch https://t.co/nCqzMLpmGR

— Android Central (@androidcentral) November 2, 2020

Google has been aware of this problem for a while now, though they haven’t officially confirmed a singular cause. They have stated that their engineers are currently working to determine what exactly is causing this failure and what, if anything, can be done about it. In the meantime, they’re encouraging any Slate users with problems to visit their Help page.