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Windows 11 blank taskbar problem

spaceboy
spaceboy Posts: 1,927 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
Apparently this is quite a common bug at the moment after a recent update but I've tried a few of the suggested fixes online and none have worked. Can anyone help?
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  • Chino
    Chino Posts: 2,031 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    spaceboy said:
    I've tried a few of the suggested fixes online and none have worked.
    Maybe list the fixes have tried so people don't keep suggesting the same things. All any posters here will do will be to perform the same internet searches you have likely already performed.
  • mluton
    mluton Posts: 805 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    Ok, Right click and make sure "Lock all taskbars" is unticked
    Drag taskbar to the side or top so it docks.
    Reboot, you should see icons again ?
    Redock to bottom
  • spaceboy
    spaceboy Posts: 1,927 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 30 July 2022 at 12:07PM
    That didn't work because when you right click on the taskbar nothing happens.

  • Gers
    Gers Posts: 13,102 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    This happened to my laptop yesterday - I rebooted and the taskbar came back.  Had no idea about it being a common problem, just thought I did something wrong.
  • Press crtl-shift-escape to open task manager
    Go to details tab, sort by name and find explorer.exe then right click end-task
    Click on 'Run new task' and type explorer.exe

    That should get the taskbar running in most cases, if not, then I would reboot.

    As for a long term fix, check you have the very latest updates installed because this problem has supposedly been fixed.

    And also do the following:

    Fix Windows commands

    Search for cmd in the search bar and run the command prompt as an administrator, execute the following command:

    sfc /scannow 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
    DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth
  • spaceboy
    spaceboy Posts: 1,927 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Press crtl-shift-escape to open task manager
    Go to details tab, sort by name and find explorer.exe then right click end-task
    Click on 'Run new task' and type explorer.exe

    That should get the taskbar running in most cases, if not, then I would reboot.

    As for a long term fix, check you have the very latest updates installed because this problem has supposedly been fixed.

    And also do the following:

    Fix Windows commands

    Search for cmd in the search bar and run the command prompt as an administrator, execute the following command:

    sfc /scannow 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
    DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth
    She's already tried the explorer thing and it didn't work. She tried all the suggestions in a popular YouTube video apart from going back to Windows 10.
  • spaceboy said:
    Press crtl-shift-escape to open task manager
    Go to details tab, sort by name and find explorer.exe then right click end-task
    Click on 'Run new task' and type explorer.exe

    That should get the taskbar running in most cases, if not, then I would reboot.

    As for a long term fix, check you have the very latest updates installed because this problem has supposedly been fixed.

    And also do the following:

    Fix Windows commands

    Search for cmd in the search bar and run the command prompt as an administrator, execute the following command:

    sfc /scannow 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
    DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth
    She's already tried the explorer thing and it didn't work. She tried all the suggestions in a popular YouTube video apart from going back to Windows 10.
    Just looked back and your photo and seems that a restart hasn't been done since the last Windows updates:



    So forgive me for being sceptical, I work in IT support and don't believe anything a user says until I've seen it with my own eyes and 80% of the time I'm right, this PC hasn't even been rebooted since the last windows update which is the first thing that should be done for any problem.

    Many people think pressing the power button is turning the PC off and on but it isn't the same as a restart.

    Can you ask them to do the following:

    1. Win-key and R
    2. Type cmd
    3. Type shutdown /r
  • spaceboy
    spaceboy Posts: 1,927 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 9 May 2024 at 12:42PM
    spaceboy said:
    Press crtl-shift-escape to open task manager
    Go to details tab, sort by name and find explorer.exe then right click end-task
    Click on 'Run new task' and type explorer.exe

    That should get the taskbar running in most cases, if not, then I would reboot.

    As for a long term fix, check you have the very latest updates installed because this problem has supposedly been fixed.

    And also do the following:

    Fix Windows commands

    Search for cmd in the search bar and run the command prompt as an administrator, execute the following command:

    sfc /scannow 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
    DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth
    She's already tried the explorer thing and it didn't work. She tried all the suggestions in a popular YouTube video apart from going back to Windows 10.
    Just looked back and your photo and seems that a restart hasn't been done since the last Windows updates:



    So forgive me for being sceptical, I work in IT support and don't believe anything a user says until I've seen it with my own eyes and 80% of the time I'm right, this PC hasn't even been rebooted since the last windows update which is the first thing that should be done for any problem.

    Many people think pressing the power button is turning the PC off and on but it isn't the same as a restart.

    Can you ask them to do the following:

    1. Win-key and R
    2. Type cmd
    3. Type shutdown /r
    Just told her about that symbol and she says it only appeared today. I will try your shutdown suggestion though, thanks.
  • spaceboy
    spaceboy Posts: 1,927 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    ok we did the shutdown thing, it installed update, but taskbar still the same:


  • Ok, so have you done the Windows repair tasks?

    Win-Key-R

    type cmd in the box then press crtl-shift-enter to run it as administrator

    then type these commands followed by a reboot as described in an earlier post

    sfc /scannow 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
    DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth
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