Windows 10: Windows Spotlight broken, not downloading images

Hello guys, I tried to use Windows Spotlight as my lock screen default, but it seems that something is corrupted in my user profile.
What I have done and discovered:

- I tried everything suggested on this forum, like this howto (Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10 Windows 10 Customization Tutorials ), but with no luck.

- when I select Spotlight the preview screen stays grey and there's always a spinning wheel.

- my "AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\StagedAsse ts" directory contains only 0 kB files and the real images are not created into "AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets "

- Spotlight works if I create a new user, but not with the current one, these are the regedit keys, please note that everything remains blank when I select Spotlight.





Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

:)

 

Windows 10 Version 1709-Blank Lock Screen

Hello,

Check if you set Lock Screen to Windows Spotlight? It might be possible Windows Spotlight is unable to pull new images and is broken after update.

Regards.

 

Windows 10 spotlight not downloading images to assets folder

Turned off all the apps and activated spotlight and turned back everything on?

 

When it's broken, it can be really hard to get it working again, if at all.

You can have a look at this and see if there are any clues:
Spotlight not working - reg entries point to non-existent image files.

C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalSt ate\Assets

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lock Screen\Creative

%AppData%\..\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Localstate\Assets \

Upon checking the "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_<somerandomchar acters>\LocalState\Assets" folder for the images, I could see that the content was being downloaded correctly. When I deleted the files new ones would appear. If I changed one of the larger files to have a .jpg extension I could open the image and it was fine, but no amount of changing available settings would make Spotlight work correctly.

I resorted to checking the registry myself for something obvious and found the "hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\lock screen" location. With the Windows Spotlight feature enabled I noticed that under the "Creative" sub-key the locations for the Windows Spotlight images are set. For me the "LandscapeAssetPath" and the "PortraitAssetPath" were set to an image file name that didn't exist and if I turned Spotlight off and on again it would set the same incorrect image file name each time.

I located a correct landscape image and manually updated the regkey accordingly (note: the directory path to my profile was correct its just the image file name that was wrong). After doing this Windows Spotlight started to work. "WIN-L" once again displayed an image! I have turned Spotlight off and on again in the "Settings - Personalisation - Lock Screen" menu and it displays a new image each time. Also I "Didnt Like" one of the images and it immediately changed it to a new one.

I am using a standard laptop so I can't say if the same fix applies to Portrait mode.

Windows 10 Lock Screen Spotlight not working - Microsoft Community

 

Nope, unfortunately no clue that worked for me in that article.

 

Tell me about it *Sad My Spotlight broke after I answered 'Yes' to 'Do you like what you see?' It got stuck on that picture until I got heartily sick of seeing it. I tried to 'un-like' it in the registry - that just made matters worse. In the end, the only thing that fixed Spotlight for me was an in-place repair install.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade