Start Menu keeps breaking...

Ceetch · December 25, 2017

A few weeks ago I started noticing my taskbar would not hide behind full screen applications, like games or playing videos. Shortly after, my Start Menu would stop opening. I click the button and nothing happens, hit the Windows key on the keyboard, nothing happens. Hit the Cortana button, nothing.

I did some searching and found the Start Menu Repair Tool from Microsoft and ran it and it said my tile database was corrupt, but that it was fixed. I restarted the computer and sure enough, the Start Menu was working again. However, it wasn't long before it stopped again. I ran the repair tool, database corrupt again. It fixed it, restarted, Start Menu is back. This keeps happening over and over and I don't see what's causing it to keep getting corrupted.

As a last resort, I followed one of the guides to create a new user account and move all my personal data over to the new profile. It took a while, but finally I had a fresh account and it seemed everything was fixed... until today. Yet again, the Start Menu fails to open, the repair tool says the database is corrupt and claims to have fixed it. Am I right back where I started? Is there some kind of rogue program or malware that's breaking the database? I've tried running Windows Integrity checks and it came back clean. I've run anti-virus/anti-malware. I'm not sure what's left I can try. Reinstall Windows entirely? I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.

I'm on Windows 10 and based on the timeline I'm seeing, it happen around the time my computer got the Fall Creator's update, which I've read has caused this sort of problem for many people. However, most people seem to report that the problem only happens once and is usually fixed without too much headache... Any idea why my situation is different? The only pattern I can find is that the corruption always seems to occur when an application is trying to go full screen. Something doesn't seem to work, and while the game or video does fill the screen, the taskbar sits on top of the application, rather than hiding behind it.

0x1e · December 26, 2017

3 hours ago, Ceetch said:

A few weeks ago I started noticing my taskbar would not hide behind full screen applications, like games or playing videos. Shortly after, my Start Menu would stop opening. I click the button and nothing happens, hit the Windows key on the keyboard, nothing happens. Hit the Cortana button, nothing.

I did some searching and found the Start Menu Repair Tool from Microsoft and ran it and it said my tile database was corrupt, but that it was fixed. I restarted the computer and sure enough, the Start Menu was working again. However, it wasn't long before it stopped again. I ran the repair tool, database corrupt again. It fixed it, restarted, Start Menu is back. This keeps happening over and over and I don't see what's causing it to keep getting corrupted.

As a last resort, I followed one of the guides to create a new user account and move all my personal data over to the new profile. It took a while, but finally I had a fresh account and it seemed everything was fixed... until today. Yet again, the Start Menu fails to open, the repair tool says the database is corrupt and claims to have fixed it. Am I right back where I started? Is there some kind of rogue program or malware that's breaking the database? I've tried running Windows Integrity checks and it came back clean. I've run anti-virus/anti-malware. I'm not sure what's left I can try. Reinstall Windows entirely? I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.

I'm on Windows 10 and based on the timeline I'm seeing, it happen around the time my computer got the Fall Creator's update, which I've read has caused this sort of problem for many people. However, most people seem to report that the problem only happens once and is usually fixed without too much headache... Any idea why my situation is different? The only pattern I can find is that the corruption always seems to occur when an application is trying to go full screen. Something doesn't seem to work, and while the game or video does fill the screen, the taskbar sits on top of the application, rather than hiding behind it.

I had this problem.
Not a clue if this fixed it, but I turned off all live tiles, removed them all from the start menu and finally uninstalled all the ones I could.
Since then I've had no problems.

Nevexo · December 26, 2017

It's another one of these things that keep happening with Windows 10 that should've been fixed in the days of Technical Preview RS1.

If possible, backup your important files and reset without removing files.

You could also try deleting the Search Indexers database and restarting the machine, then leave it alone to rebuild.