Why won't my taskbar auto-hide stay hidden on Windows 11?

A common reason the taskbar pops up and stays visible is an app asking for attention, even if its notification or dialog isn’t obvious. Next time it happens, check for a highlighted or flashing taskbar icon. Open that app and dismiss any pending prompt. If nothing stands out, fully quit apps from the system tray one at a time—closing their windows may leave them running. If the taskbar starts behaving after one app closes, update that app or disable its notifications to see whether that prevents it.

For the opposite problem, when the taskbar won’t appear, press the Windows key to bring up Start and access the taskbar without restarting Explorer. If you use a taskbar customizer or desktop dock, temporarily disable it and test again; those are more useful suspects than changing display scaling at random.

If you have multiple monitors, briefly test with Win + P > PC screen only. If auto-hide works correctly on one display, focus on the multi-monitor setup and graphics driver rather than individual apps.

There isn’t enough information to call this a known bug in your Windows build. Since restarting Explorer only helps temporarily, identifying whether an app or the display setup triggers it is more likely to lead to a lasting fix than repeatedly resetting auto-hide.