Windows 10: Cortana started working.

After weeks of fruitlessly searching the Microsoft forums, among many others, trying to find out why my Cortana stopped listening to me, why she would not answer me, why she seemed to shut down immediately after asking her to do something on my Windows 10 system, all of a sudden she just started working again a couple of days ago.
I had been poking around with the Cortana settings for a few days, trying to get lucky, thinking that an update from Microsoft was the only repair forthcoming, when I began to notice that every time I asked Cortana a question, the little "location" circle would appear in my toolbar, and then disappear.
I remembered reading that for Cortana to work, location and location history search had to be turned on.

Ok, I am not gonna tell you that I know exactly what I did, but I went into location settings and noticed that Location for Cortana was grayed out in the Off position.

I set everything back to default in Location settings, turned on Allow apps to access your location, set my default location, cleared Location History on this Device.

Went back to Cortana settings, turned everything I could find to the On position....everything!

I went here: Cortana > Settings > Permissions & History. Select Manage the information Cortana can access from this device. Turn the Location setting to ON! Everything else in this settings area is turned to the ON position as well.

I turned my computer off and went to bed.

I got up in the morning, booted up, and she worked fine.
I went back to that grayed out area in Location that I mentioned above, and Cortana location was still grayed out, but in the ON position. (dafuq?)


That's all I can tell you. I don't know if I did anything else, I don't know if some other conflict resolved itself in this process.
I did not get any Microsoft update in this period so it wasn't that.

All I know is that Cortana can now see my location and she works like new.

I truly hope this helps someone get Cortana fixed and running on their laptop, computer, whatever.

Peace!



:)

 

Cortana not working

Hi,

Just to ensure that the settings are configured correctly, please try the steps below.

This issue may occur if location settings are not turned on for Cortana.

To turn on location settings for Cortana, I suggest you to try these steps and check if it helps.

• 
  Click on Start Button and type Location in the search.
  
• 
  Open Location Privacy Settings.
  
• 
  Under the option "choose apps that can use your location" check if Cortana is turned on.
  
• 
  If not turn on and check if it helps.
  

Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue so that we can assist you further.

 

Cortana

Hi,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

Appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

This issue can occur if some of the system files are not working as expected.

Suggest you to follow the steps from this article to
troubleshoot Cortana on the PC.

Note: Do not go with the ‘Reset PC’ option for now.

Method 1: Follow these steps to disable Cortana:

1. Sign-in to the PC with your Microsoft account.
   
2. In the search box at the bottom, type Disable Cortana.
   
3. Once the suggestions appear in the list, click Cortana & Search settings.
   
4. From the right section of the Settings pane, move the top button to ‘Off’ to disable Cortana from Windows 10.
   

Method 2: Follow these steps to check if that helps.

1. Launch Cortana from the search bar on the taskbar.
   
2. Then, from the left pane click the settings button.
   
3. Under "Cortana" (the first option) and slide the pill switch to the ‘Off’ position.
   

Method 3: Launch the Settings app and click on Privacy. Navigate to Speech, inking, & typing, and click Stop getting to know me. These steps will disable Cortana.

Hope this helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator

 

Start menu and Cortana not working/freezes?

I had this issue about two weeks ago ("Critical Error -- Start menu and Cortana aren't working. We'll try to fix it the next time you sign in."). At that time I tried the steps you listed above and it worked but now those steps are no longer working.
Do you have any other suggestions? I have been having various issues with Windows 10 ever since I converted from Windows 7. But this is the worst problem.

Thanks