Forum Discussion
Windows 11 Task Bar Empty
Ok, so almost every time I boot up windows 11, my task bar shows, but only the tray icon arrow shows/works.
The rest of the task bar doesn't load/appear. If I wait for maybe half hour and kill exporer.exe and restart it, it starts working again.
Now I don't always have to wait this long, but sometimes it takes ages.
Once in a while it'll work fine, but that's rare.
- I have the same problem, but I can't load taskbar items at all even after half hour. I restart eplorer, run sfc scan, remove the latest quality update and doesn't work at all. I can't open settings too, and my desktop right click menu bring back to old version.
please help me. I use the latest update (build 22000.168)- I'm also having the exact same problem, have you found a solution to this?
The only thing I can do to make it work again is to reinstall 22000.100.Denzic Unfortunately not 😞
I've reported the bug via the feedback software, but nothing back.
I really do hope this gets fixed, it's a pretty major bug.
- https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/09/02/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22449/
Please these steps should help.- Thanks Andrej, but I have tried this already and it's not working for me.
- I'll give this a go later 🤞
- https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-insider-program/windows-11-dev-build-missing-taskbar/m-p/2595899/page/5
This discussion is helped by the setting - changing time with forward date is worth checking.
- Had a problem with my HP. I updated it a week ago and now the taskbar is bugged, and my laptop was factory reset, leading me to believe it´s the update´s fault. Anyone knows what I can do? without access to Settings I can´t restore a previous version.
Deleted W + R & W+X are not working, I think I might have to access through recovery mode.
I'm on the Insiders Build and this is something that had been giving me some trouble for a while. First, I had been pointed to the IrisService but that was a dead-end, and then I also been told to restart the WSearch service which may have worked but wasn't consistent.
Finally, someone mentioned trying to restart explorer, so I decided to give that a try. You could probably get this accomplished with cmd but I tend to use PowerShell more.
Get-process -Name explorer | Stop-Process
This killed the Explorer process and the Taskbar immediately came back and is working fine now. I'll see if I can try to reproduce again to verify, but this is a good start.
This is a great hint, thanks. What I did is : Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and log out current account, then log in again. It's annoying to do this every time I reboot my computer but it works. Hopefully Microsoft will solov this soon.
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Updated on Dec 17, 2021
I am not sure if it's because of the update these days. My taskbar is good now.
- I've just bumped into this issue tonight. It happened out of nowhere and is driving me mad. After 30 minutes to an hour of booting up the PC, i can also restart explorer through Task Manager and get it working, but a restart kills it once again. I've tried every proposed fix in the book to no avail. So i now have to keep my PC running, or hibernate as opposed to restart the PC
Let's be honest, this is an unacceptable bug for a major operating system, and being told to re-install the OS is a poor cover up for a glaring problem that can be fixed easily in an update if Microsoft actually bothered. I've heard this bug has existed since early builds of W11. Microsoft are aware of this, but their prescribed advice doesn't work. I will probably just revert back to Windows 10 if this is still an option, as W11 has just proved it's not reliable as an OS.
- Didn’t work for me
- Ok so this issue has popped up again after the last update, but I can't seem to get the task bar to show up at all, no matter what I do now.
- Update on this, it got to the point where I couldn't use the computer anymore, so I've done a reset from boot, this fixed the issue. I'm wondering if this is related to upgrading from windows 10 with possible straggling files and or old software / drivers which could be causing this. But a proper fresh install did get rid of the problem.
I've also found that the prescribed fix doesn't seem to do anything. My solution is restart Windows Explorer. Temporary, and sometimes results in losing all of my taskbar entries in the quick menu, but it allows me to work.
- If you're installed Win11 Insider Build with Dev Channel try to get to the latest build and reboot. If not working trying to provide this back to MS via Feedback Hub app let them to investigating this issue.
- I've got the same problem, and have posted this problem on the feedback hub several times with no reply. I've tried every fix I could find, but killing the windows explorer process seems to help (most) of the time. From what I've been reading, this is mainly affecting dual monitor setups, and supposedly has something to do with the Iris service also. As no update has helped, MS needs to fix this one very quickly. Too many people who don't want to tinker with their computers, (I'm a tinkerer, and it's still very annoying.), won't want to touch win11. I'd like to find a process that I could run at startup that is basically an if/else type of file, that says if icons aren't visible on taskbar, then kill process windows explorer, ex.. I don't see this issure making anyone absolutely want to upgrade to win11.
- This just started happening for me after the newest KB5009566 update. This was happening for me back when the first dev builds were released for Windows 11. When the stable build came out I did a fresh install and it's been fine since until now. It's really annoying having to restart explorer.exe every time I restart my computer. I hope this is fixed soon.
I found also after the "2022-01 Cumulative update Preview for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Window's 11 for x64 (KB5009469)" every time I restarted I would have a blank task bar with show hidden icons select only.
Only way I get a normal restart with my task bar is to roll back before the update. And If I keep the update, I open Task Manager/ processes tab and scroll all the way down to Windows Explorer, select it and click Restart bottom right. Would love a fix for this from anyone.
- Exactly same happened with me. After recent dot net framework update, taskbar is empty. Even reinstalling the OS didn't solved issue. (Fine after reinstall untill this dot net framework update gets installed).
Did you found any solution ?
- Has anyone found a permanent fix for this?
The temporary fixes of restarting (after waiting 5-10 minutes after boot) explorer.exe through cmd or powershell, do work for me.
Problem first occured when I was changing default installtion for new apps to a different drive (microsoft store apps and xbox game pass games). Only found these temporary fixes then I decided to reset my windows.
That fixed it, permanently until a month later. Now. Problem occurs after I download and install the update KB5008363. I've tried to uninstall that update, taskbar still gone. Only temporary fixes work. Is there any permanent fix without me reseting my pc again, rather not do that again. Is mircosoft aware of this issue? Ran this in PowerShell worked for me when nothing else did. Restart after or restart explorer.exe Change the two web quotes “ ” to normal quotes.
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}Jackized thank you very much. I will definitely try that out.
- I have the same issue on my Windows 11 insiders edition latest version.
Have tried all the suggestions without any luck.
