Windows 10: Critcal Error: Your Start Menu Isn't Working

Tried that solution, didn't work.... I don't get notifications either as my start menu has problems about once after 30 days since a reinstall (my original install was done on August 11, Start Menu error on September 8 so did a in-place upgrade on September 12 only to have the problem again on October 16). In all cases, it is after booting up and logging in when it happens as what also happens is HDD Health will fail saying it is unable to write C:\Program Files (x86)\HDD Health\_identity.bin with like 50+ windows until Windows Explorer kills it. When Start Menu works, HDD Health works fine.

 

Try reindexing - you will find this in control panel. In the search box top right type indexing. Go to Indexing Options, on the first window click advanced, on the one that appears after you have clicked advanced, click on Rebuild

Another try
On an elevated cmd prompt type powershell then Enter
on the cmd that appears next copy and paste Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
Enter

The OS should have done a backup automatically - go to control panel (Backup and Restore) and try to Restore.

 

Already tried that before, didn't make a difference.

 

A right-click on start works, except for search. A left-click and nothing happens.

Could someone give me some ideas please.

 

Right click has never failed... I noticed that Cortana is dead too when left doesn't work.

 

right click on start button shows entire menu - "search" function is not working
left click on start button has no effect at all - you keep seeing the start button as if someone never touched it.
sfc /scannow gives no problems
ran the snazziest antivirus and antimalwares
couldn't run combofix since it s not compatible with Win10
I already restored the system image from a prior backup to no avail
I don't know if I run older system images it will work
I'll keep om trying, but if someone has a bright idea don't forget to share it, please.

 

I've had the same issue, but have realized that it is only when I log on as a domain user (either when I logon to the local machine or the domain, doesn't matter if I am using my domain login). If I login as the local user, I have my start menu.
Anyone else?

 

I decided to restore an image backup I had made just before switching to Windows 10. Then I downloaded Win10 from the pending updates (the system image took me back to Windows 7 just before I decided to upgrade) and the Start button problem went away. My personal files were not affected but I had to download the software I had added since then all again. Fortunately there were very few softwares I addded during that period.

 

In case anyone here is still having the problem, I may have found a solution. There are some posts about Dropbox possibly causing this. I had Dropbox installed in 1 of my profiles, so I uninstalled it, rebooted the computer & boom - no more critical error!

Don't know if this is a common link, but an easy solution to try.

 

Kind of interesting that dropbox is the cause as I do have dropbox too but what is causing it to only happen randomly as mines always happens a month after the last Windows 10 install. Perhaps dropbox can fix the problem too.

 

That would be nice if Dropbox fixed the problem. But for now, I'm glad to know what the problem is & have been able to fix it. I have dropbox on another computer as well & have not had this problem, but will be removing it from that computer as well (just in case).

 

The problem is I wonder how does one reproduce the problem for dropbox to even believe us. Maybe it's the version of dropbox that's installed? Dropbox 3.10.11 is what I have but that's from a auto-update I think as it shows a install date 2 days ago. I've installed dropbox for years and Program and Features will usually update the date to the last Windows 10 install which for me was October 24, 2015.

 

I just experienced the critical error/start menu issue on my Win10 install. I uninstalled dropbox and problem went away.

Observations;

When problem happens, task icons all load in the ^ menu vs. on the bottom right task bar. Cortana is broken, the notifications are broken and I am sure other things are broken. Seems like a corrupted profile. So, I concur on DropBox being part of the problem. Maybe dropbox can't load and then halts processing of loading the profile for the user. I am going to reload dropbox now and see if all is well.

 

What version was the dropbox that was uninstalled? I used to have the problem when dropbox 3.10 was installed and basically, I would need to do Windows in-place upgrade installs to repair the problem with build 10240 about every 28 days since August 11, 2015 and then the same amount of time after each in-place repair upgrade until I heard about the dropbox issue. So I uninstalled dropbox 3.10 and installed dropbox 3.11 in November and the problem has never returned on both 10240 and now I'm at 10586.36.