Windows 10: Start button vanishes?

Hello,

What could be the reason for this: every now and then, like maybe every once in four boots my Start button doesn't work. Or search. Windows works fine otherwise and I can access the right button menu over start so I can restart but no reaction from either clicking with a mouse on it normally, or clicking search button; neither do function keys work. Straight from boot.

Then I just reboot and it works again. Really weird. I have a normal Microsoft keyboard and all as well. I had the same problem ONCE on another machine of mine, but on that it happened once and stuck until I reinstalled W10 keeping all the files, after which it has worked. I also reinstalled on this machine but it doesn't seem to help. Every now and then I boot into Windows and---no start button functions.

Any ideas?

:)

 

Start Button

Let's execute these 2 basic troubleshooting first and check after each step

1. Run Start menu troubleshooter

http://aka.ms/diag_StartMenu

2. Reinstall Start Menu / Cortana

Windows Key+X > Click Powershell (Admin) > Copy the below and paste into Powershell > Enter > Reboot your computer

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Copy and paste following into Powershell and Enter

Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

 

start button

Glad to hear that everything's good on your end. Do post again if there's anything else you need.

All the best.

 

The time the Start button disappears or won't even be seen at all is generally after you have upgraded to 10 from a previous version rather then seeing a clean install of 10 go on. The upgrade comes out buggy with the only solution being a full fresh clean install of 10 going on. This was a bit more typically seen with the 10240 and other Insider builds that immediately followed last July's launch of 10.

If this is what you saw there you may just end up facing the same thing unfortunately. Saw that happen on a 7 laptop upgraded to 10 where the Start button was invisible and the AllApps section simply could not be opened. The entire drive was then wiped following a clean install later when switching over from the 32bit to 64bit clean install on a brand new primary replacing all of the OEM clutter. Yet upgrading from one Insider Preview build to the next and the next on the two desktops as well as several VMs on both systems has never run into this type of problem so far! It seems to be inherit from upgrading from a previous version where the bug then appears.

 

It's a fresh install on a new machine in this case. Just set it up a week back. I did try a fix install over it when the issue first appeared.

 

Something isn't going fully then for some reason! This has been more or less an upgrade bug while even a few clean installs can still end up having a bad day. Unfortunately that is what you have been seeing there for some reason.

Since you already attempted the second Upgrade to Repair method and are still seeing this I would have to suspect replacing the 10 media used might be a help since you are still going to be faced with the need for another clean install. If you used a flash drive it's a good chance the write to the drive wasn't complete or some problem was seen while booted live from it. As for another repair attempt skipping past the media entirely you could also try replacing the buggy clean install by upgrading to an Insider Preview build! Insider Builds - Start or Stop Receiving in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

I ended up doing that here when the Threshold 2 Update got buggy after the second month and simply decided to enable the Get insider builds option. The latest build now about to be replaced is the 14316 pending a newer build in time for the month of May. One more if not a predecessor of the Redstone 1 First Anniversary general release coming in July will be likely as well.

The upgrade by Windows Update into the preview build back at the start of February corrected the seemingly unsolvable problem I had run into at the time. Likewise this could also prove to be a way out for you without the need to see a total wipe and new 10 media prepared if something there was wrong.

 

Hmm, good idea thanks...I also have severe issues with DPC latency, even with a 4.5GHz i7 and 16GB of fast RAM and an M.2 drive I get stutters playing back even simple audio now and then. I'll try to use the beta releases!

 

And, I installed firstly off DVD but the repair attempt online directly. I have tried four times to install off USB on different machines and it has never worked for some reason, but burning a DVD no problems.

 

That would be from the UEFI issue where you have to go into the bios setup in order to switch over to the Legacy mode. A good number of people have to see that taken care with the more recent model laptops as well as the newer boards on custom builds.

I had to burn optical sets for each edition here as well along with actually buying a dvd set from Newegg on a Black Friday discount to grab the extra key as well as the media since I run a dual boot with 7 Ultimate on the main and another with 7 Pro on the second test build seeing Insider Preview builds only there. An older 7 laptop simply would not boot from usb while I was still able to bring up the boot device menu. Since that was bought in 2012 I have to suspect UEFI was involved there as well.

You could have easily seen a bad burn. The best optical media for use with the Media Creation tool being two editions rolled into one download would be the larger 8gb dual layer type blank dvd'r media since the "Windows.iso" exceeds the 4gb capacity as much as by the 5.6gb on disk when written to flash drive. Haven't tried the initial instant online upgrade option over concerns the connection to the MS server could be bumped in some manner causing a fail.

So far after going for the Insider builds and allowing each newer one to upgrade over the previous I have generally been seeing great results while a minor Windows sounds assigned to functions problem came up on the last build. Those are still developer type builds however so you have to be prepared for any the newer builds have of their own while this seems to one way to get 10 running good.

 

Well, third installation done, and still the start button vanishes now and then.

Now it does it all of a sudden; it may work fine for an hour but then poof suddenly it won't work and neither will any other like keyboard shortcuts.

I tried re-installing over this via network and it gave an error about an invalid command and exited.

Sigh. Been running memory tests and whatnot, all kinds of diagnostics.

All I can see happening is right before the start button ceases to work there's a huge spike in CPU usage.

 

Hi, have you had a look at your reliability history? Or your event log? Clearly you will know when the start button did not respond..

And maybe LatencyMon by Resplendence might give you a clue as regards the stutter/latency (which might be a separate issue, I suppose...).

Note that some have reported latency related to Chrome - a fix has been posted.

 

Resplendence is what I use. But it doesn't show any singular program, just explorer etc. in a few hundred page faults. Looks like this:





So huge reported hard pagefail resolution time - those would be the spikes that make the whole machine stutter - but if you look at any other reported list or after stopping the program...no program is reported having anomalous numbers of page faults.

I completely removed Chrome but it changed nothing. Then now I loaded default optimal BIOS values and that changed nothing either. Back at square one I guess.

In Event Viewer I have had a couple of hundred errors today, mostly DHCPv6 Client reporting that
"Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0x305A3A03F3D6. The following error occurred: 0x79. Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server."

I don't know what the hell is that or what does it mean really. But that's one error that seems to be generated hundreds of times a day.

 

The DHCPv6 wouldn't have anything to do with the Start button or inability to open the Start menu or something inside like the AllApps or Windows Accessories. That is something totally different involving the network configuration you have going on there. But does suggest a likely bugged clean install as to why the problems are now increasing?!

On a fresh VM made overnight I ran into a slightly stubborn to open Start menu very briefly however and then cleared right up. The test VM was originally supposed to be an upgrade install of the latest build over the Threshold 2 update seen out in November but ended being a totally fresh install from the "$Windows~BT" folder copied onto a second partitiion once the vhd was expanded to allow that to be created. The install other then went smooth and fast!

 

I don't know, I used the same media for 3 other machines as well no issues, and I have installed Win10 clean twice on this machine, plus a couple of 'repair' installs...nothing seems to change anything. It works, or doesn't work, for no apparent reason I can see.

Today the start button hasn't given me any grief. I suspect it may have something to do with the computer shutting off display after a while, I'll try turning off that function and see what happens.

That is the least of my problems though. I need to find out what and why does those hard page faults with insanely long resolution times. That's what's bogging the whole system down.

In the end I do believe it's mostly the fault of the VNAND M.2 drive in some way...perhaps it loads too fast for windows drivers or something...should have stuck with regular SSD drives instead...

 

The display going to sleep wouldn't generally have any effect on the Start menu while the pc going to sleep on the other hand often requires a full restart once things are not seen made active again being one of the main problems for the sleep and hibernate modes. Once in sleep or hibernate device drivers tend to become inactive in the Windows memory and need to be refreshed.

A few diagnostics such as testing the drive for bad sectors and a run of the memtest tool to see if there's any sign of a hardware problem would be a thought. Since you have ruled out the 10 media used you have to look at after things specific to that system alone.