Windows 10 Safely Remove Oddity

[GigaBowser]

Previously when I safely remove my drives, a message would pop up on the side saying that I could now safely remove it. Now, however, that doesn't happen. Instead, the "Safely Remove" icon on the tray gains a green checkmark and nothing else. I can't click on the icon to bring up the menu anymore. Is my device safely removed? What's going on?

 

[Colif]

Odd, its normal behaviour now, if you have no devices attached, should be to vanish. In the original release of Win 10 the icon always showed, now it should only show up if you have a USB in it. You can change its behaviour by going to settings/Personalisation/Taskbar - Select which icons appear on the taskbar - the description is Windows Explorer, Safely remove Hardware and eject media. Perhaps toggling it on and off again might fix it.

You can also try this:
right click start button
choose command prompt (admin)
type SFC /scannow and press enter

this scans system files and may fix this behaviour

 

[GigaBowser]

I think you may have misunderstood. The icon I normally see when a device is plugged in is this:

https://www.freeflour.com/wp-content/uploads/Safely-Remove-Hardware-USB-Windows-10-Icon-Missing.png

However, after using this icon to choose to safely remove my device, the icon changes to one with a green checkmark next to it, and nothing happens. No message appears saying the device has been safely removed, and now clicking on the icon (With the green checkmark) does nothing at all.

Basically, it leaves me in this weird state where I have no idea if my device has been ejected or not, and I cannot try again.

 

[Colif]

No, that is the icon I mean. It should disappear if no USB stick is plugged in, not do what you are getting. You also should still get the notification pop up on the side.

I offered SFC as I thought it might help.