Black rectangle on TV screen

Could you post the make and model of your TV?

i love directions as they ALWAYS leave out some of the steps. here it is:
black blank box is connected to CC or closed caption. from the tv controls, push the CC button and while the box is reading closed caption, push button again (maybe twice) and when it says OFF simply set the controls down, your done.

Ok, My problem is very weird! Now read this. When I turn to Channel 26.5 digital Chanel in Chicago, I get a black square box that is blocking screen, you can only see the edges of TV screen. When I turn off TV and turn it on again, the box comes back. I thought that it has something to do with a converter box,but is is working ok on my other 2 TV sets. Weirdest of all, of the sudden I get message typed with white letters. It is definitely being typed, you can see letters increasing to the right. The language is foreign, at the end of message there's a word AFRD? I am not trying to sound paranoid, could be someone playing tricks with us? Some neighbor whose got device and can do that to our TV? My TV is Sonyo very old, about 1980s and Menu doesn't work with the Universal remote control. I have no mannual

My Sony TV showed a black rectangle that covered the bottom half of the screen. It was only on some channels, and changing volume made it go away for a short time... Sometimes only a few seconds. Using the remote control and pressing "menu", then changing the captioning settings fixed the problem... Thanks everyone for useful suggestions.

My black box was rectangle covering about 90% of the center of the screen. It happened only when the closed caption was ON. I had played a video just before and did not exit the video or stop the DVD player properly or something. I tried to turn off the TV, reset the closed caption menu etc. but nothing worked.

TO FIX I JUST HAD TO PUT THE DVD BACK INTO THE PLAYER AND LOAD IT AGAIN. I THEN STARTED PLAYING THE DVD FOR A FEW SECONDS AND THEN I HIT THE STOP BUTTON ON THE DVD AND TURNED OFF THE PLAYER PROPERLY. The black box dissapeared and my captions started working again. So bottom line is that the problem was caused by not exiting or turning off the DVD player properly. Good Luck!

Wow thanks to all for the replies on the black rectangle on TV screen. It was a change in my text setting. I thought my TV was dying.

Thank you! Not in the mood to buy a new TV. I love Google and you for taking time to respond! Big relief.

Thank you so much!!

The black box comes up on my Vizio TV screen with no words. It was the closed caption setting. First you have to pull up the Input Screen, ie; AV1, AV2, component 1, etc. Once in the Input Mode you will see a 'cc' symbol (for closed caption) on the screen, it should say 'Off'. Then use your Vizio TV controller, toggle the 'cc' button until you see the 'cc' icon on the Input screen say 'Off', this eliminates the black box on the screen!!! Thank goodness for the Cable Guy who showed me this!

i had the same problem with the black box on my screen i read previous suggestions and the one that worked for me was to change the closed captioning setting i turned it off and low and behold the black box is gone tyvm

I just fix it..Go to caption,and if u have text 1 that s the proble
.U just have to take Text 1 off..and the black box will deseappeared

Just hit the CC button once on my Vizio & problem solved

I have the same problem as this guy is having.... I have a old sony Trinitron box tv , and a dish network setup.... went into the settings menu and went to vison cc and changed it from cc4 to cc3 and it seems to be fine after a few minutes passed. im not solid on it though..perhaps it wouldn't hurt to let more time pass, but I would like to know how to shut closed captioning (cc)off, on a sony Trinitron box tv. its definitely closed captioning setting that causes this.... I switched through text form of cc to cc1,2,3 and 4 and used rcx and it shifted the small rectangle box in different locations on the tv screen and some where readable and some weren't. some where like. Histo34j*#!^^ Ch@nn#^^4(example1) some where like...the most endagerd where the five hundred residents(example2) some where a giant black box covering half the screen showing the dialogue the program was saying at the time... in the end it seems cc3 worked... but would like to know how to do it right thanks

@Wiley
Daddy turned the TV off of the channel, channel 73 for their TV, and back on again. the black square was close to the middle of the screen and had a single letter. it rotated from an 'X' to a 'D'. sometimes it was a long triangle in the middle of the screen. it has 5 or 6 numbers in it. it didn't prevent us from watching TV, but was anoying.
I hope that this helps somebody.

All I know is that it's a Sanyo flatscreen TV.

I had the same problem. Your fix worked great. Thank you. One problem: When I turn the captions on again, the black box appears again. I don't hear very well, so captions are really the thing for me. Is there something I can do about it?

Black box appeared on my TV and it's like someone was typing. The remote was far away from anybody and undisturbed so I was weirded out. It typed things like 33@yyyyyy[[[[[[[[[[ made no sense and I hit exit on the remote it went away. Then about 20 minutes later it does it again typing more letters, symbols and numbers. I was weirded out as well. I found this info and checked my TV and the weirdest thing is my CC was off. My TV will also change input all by itself when your watching TV just late at night. I'm then in the dark searching for the remote to put it back on the right input. I get kinda weirded out.

Just wanna say THANK YOU for the simple tip in removing the irritating rect black box on the middle of my Vizio screen. I followed your simple instructions regarding the CC off etc. So far so good no black box on screen! THANKS AGAIN RENNE!!! (Riverside, CA)

toshiba VC653

toshiba VC658