Weird Black Spot with Glossy Material Why am I getting a black spot in the cylinder. The scene is nothing special consists of few objects with no materials except for the cylinder, and lighting comes from the environment map.

The cylinder is smooth shaded and simply using a glossy material with the default settings.

Could this possibly have to do with render settings. I have tried re-adding the cylinder and creating a new glossy material but with the same results.
The problem is caused by the smooth shading that you hve applied to the cylinder.
So you can try just adding a loop cut all the way to one end and then another loopcut all the way to another end.