[SOLVED] Taskbar Icons Disappear Until Hover

[Dididoo]

Hi,

When I click the show system tray button, internet or volume button on the taskbar, all icons in the taskbar except the Start, Cortana and cascade view buttons disappear. They only reappear when I hover over where the icons should be. Does anyone know why this could be happening? I'm thinking it has to do with explorer.exe refreshing, but have no idea where to go from here.

I have tried sfc /scannow and DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth. The problem does not occur in safe mode or in other users, so I think it must be something with my current user.

 

[Colif]

try this

Disable the screen saver, set the power plan so the monitor never goes off, and disable sleep, make sure you do not have Auto Hide Taskbar enabled

 

[Dididoo]

try this

Disable the screen saver, set the power plan so the monitor never goes off, and disable sleep, make sure you do not have Auto Hide Taskbar enabled

None of these work; since I can directly cause the disappearing by clicking the expand system tray icon, volume or internet icons, I do not think any of these should work. The only time-based effect on the disappearing is when the taskbar refreshes by itself; then the icons also disappear.

 

[Colif]

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

just thinking maybe you have something running on that user thats not on the others

 

[Dididoo]

Tried a clean boot, unfortunately no luck. The problem is fixed with safe mode, but not clean boot; I'm guessing that implies it's something to do with Windows/Microsoft settings/services, but let me know what you think

 

[Colif]

Since we know it works on other users, why not make a new local user and swap?
Make local & make it an admin - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au...-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account
while logged into your current user, copy the contents of its folder in C:/users onto the new users folder - that will give it exact same access as current user and means you don't have to download anythiing. Just relogon to certain programs.

Profiles break, I had it happen to me. Easier to just use a different user than to wonder why it is doing this to only 1.

 

[Dididoo]

That sounds like a good idea! I thought about it but wasn't entirely sure if I could just straight copy-paste user data, and what would not be transferred in the process. Is it just a straight copy-paste in Windows Explorer? Is there anything you know does not transfer over in terms of settings, data, etc., just so that I can make sure I don't miss anything in the transfer? Thanks!

 

[Colif]

just copying folders over should be enough.
you may need to re logon to some things like Onedrive, Windows Store... but apart from that you don't need to do anything
Need to set up desktop though.

copy/paste in File exploder is right.

 

[Dididoo]

Thanks! So I've left it since the last message and it's at 0% complete, with more than 1 day in Time remaining. The speed is 11.7MB/s but no progress. Should I try restarting Windows Explorer, should I just wait, or is there another way?

 

[Colif]

no... thats wrong?

all you should do is go to C:/users/current user in file explorer
copy that folder onto C:/users/new user
It should be instant, not take 1 day???

 

[Dididoo]

no... thats wrong?

all you should do is go to C:/users/current user in file explorer
copy that folder onto C:/users/new user
It should be instant, not take 1 day???

I think it's hanging; but also my C:/Users/broken_user has a lot of files so I don't presume it's instant, shouldn't it take some time to copy all those files? Though I restarted Explorer and it is making progress; I will keep you posted!

 

[Colif]

oh. I see. All your library folders still in default locations?
hmm, and is it a hdd?

how big? 1 day is an estimate. Probably less.

I have all my library folders on hdd, if I swap my user its just copying links. That and its on an ssd.

 

[Dididoo]

I haven't moved library folders in terms of Downloads, Documents, Pictures, etc. if that's what you mean. I have set up my OS on an SSD (so C: is the SSD), so I think all I need to copy in terms of user is bad_user to new_user from the SSD C:/Users? After retrying the copy I now have 28% complete, Speed 200 MB/s, Time remaining 30 minutes with 60 GB remaining to copy.

EDIT: Speed is now hovering around 1 MB/S, so the time remaining has jumped to 3 hours. I guess the estimate jumps around based on the changing speed

 

[Colif]

ssd are fast until you ask them to move 60gb around on themselves. Then they aren't.
Problem with that method is you will have all that on drive twice. I didn't think of that...
I mean, you could do this afterwards to old broken user (once you sure it all works) - https://www.onmsft.com/how-to/delete-user-accounts

if you have another hdd it would have been faster if you had relocated the library folders onto another drive before starting, but I didn't think of it.

Stopping it now would be a bad idea


I have them all on other drives anyway as it is easier when you go to reinstall win 10. Everything is on HDD, Just need to point libraries at folders again. And take ownership.

 

[Dididoo]

Oh I see. Could you explain your last paragraph some more? Is your meaning that HDDs are faster in terms of moving files? I put some programs that I needed to launch/run faster on the SSD, but also since Windows 10 is on the SSD I guess I didn't think to relocate the default library folders (in Windows File Explorer) to the HDD library folders. The copying process is 40% now so is it easier to just let it finish, then point the File Explorer libraries to those on the HDD?

 

[Colif]

i wouldn't stop it now as it as almost finished. and stopping it could cause problems if it just loses data.

Hdd aren't faster than ssd, no. Main advantage to having libraries on another drive apart from the boot ssd is that if your win 10 install dies, you don't lose everything in the process. I have documents, music, videos (not that I have any), Onedrive , and steam library all on my hdd. I would use an ssd but I only have the one.

if you move the folders in future, a BIG tip is make the destination folder 1st
then follow this - https://www.dummies.com/computers/o...e-the-location-of-user-folders-in-windows-10/

You make folder 1st and when you reach stage 10, make sure its the right folder set as destination as it can be a pain to fix.
Accidentally making Documents an entire hdd is not funny.

 

[Dididoo]

Ah, ok. The copy process just froze now:

https://imgur.com/XmLKNZx

View: https://imgur.com/XmLKNZx


But I'm not sure if I should wait or just kill it (I searched this up and someone said they waited for days and it would still be frozen). Everything else in Windows is working fine, so it's just Windows Explorer.

Is there a faster way to do this? Is it something like moving the user folder locations to HDD first, then moving it between users?

 

[Colif]

no. I would wait and see if it stays frozen. I don't want you to lose any data so the ssd could be sorting as you just moved 60gb around on it...

 

[Dididoo]

Ok, I will give it some time. On a side note, while this process is running I just tried clicking the expand system tray icon many times, and the icons aren't disappearing! The only thing I can think has changed is that Window Explorer is running a heavy operation, and maybe the request to refresh the icons is at last priority compared to the file copying? Just throwing guesses out there; I'll have to see if it persists if this copy-paste process is not running.

 

[Colif]

why not use new user and see if the fix worked. I mean, it is reason we did it.

It seems funny to copy 60gb across and then still use the old user.

User profiles aren't easy things to fix, I am not sure how you would. Its why I suggest a new one as normally it doesn't take that long to swap. Perhaps I am using myself as a starting spot and remembering it didn't take long for me.

 

[Dididoo]

Yea for sure, I was just pointing out that it's interesting the issue disappears when there is a heavy File Explorer operation; perhaps there is a correlation there. As for the copying I feel this is going to take a while; from what I see from searching this hanging could last for days - should I just keep waiting?

 

[Colif]

if there is absolutely no disc activity on the ssd, you could try. It might be finished. Its hard to say.

If you willing to risk it, stop it and restart explorer and um... good thing is you were just copying... so still have original info.
could try logging into other user and see if you have same access etc.

 

[Colif]

ii was silly and forgot it was a copy, not a cut. the only thing this might break is the new user, and you can delete it and try again after moving the other folders if you have to.

 

[Dididoo]

I think I found the issue!

So one of my startup programs is this:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/WindowedBorderlessGaming

Which allows borderless windowed for games that don't natively have it. I found I accidentally added "explorer.exe" as one of the "games" it manages. Once I removed it and restarted, the issue was gone. So I think there was something happening where once WindowedBorderlessGaming was launched, even if I closed it after, the attempt to make explorer.exe itself borderless left its effects. So clicking "into" the game explorer.exe, prompted explorer.exe to try to have its border hidden, but that just hid the taskbar icons.

Now, I don't know why it still happened with clean boot. Perhaps I was running clean boot after WindowedBorderlessGaming effects were applied to explorer.exe, the issue persisted after the clean boot. But this does explain the "user-specific" aspect of this problem.

I could also be completely wrong and the issue shows up again. The most I can think to do now is try to recreate it with WindowedBorderlessGaming, and before I removed the "explorer.exe" setting in the program, I did click the system tray icon multiple times to confirm it was fine, then launched WindowedBorderlessGaming and confirmed the taskbar was hiding icons. After removing the explorer.exe setting I'm unable to recreate it in the way I was before.

Again, I could be pointing fingers in the wrong direction and it could bite me in the future. If that does happen, I will update you. For now I will be cautiously optimistic and continue as normal, to see if the issue crops up again. Thank you for your help so far!

 

[Colif]

a change made by steam shouldn't affect how windows works in clean boot. Clean boot removes everything from startup except base windows programs so that process wouldn't have loaded at all at startup and only if you open it should it have done anything to taskbar icons.

what do you install? what is the file name? i go look into it. Maybe not now as its 4.15am but tomorrow.