Spotlight now broken on all PC's

Spotlight has just stopped working on all my PC's (1 desktop and two laptops). The three systems got upgraded from version 1809 about 4 weeks ago and Spotlight worked fine before and after (the desktop PC is brand new and came with 1809 preinstalled). They are all currently running version 1903, build 18362.207 (one was running 1903, build 18362.175 when Spotlight broke). The Desktop PC is running Professional, the two laptops are running Home. They have very little software installed (and what is installed is different on the three).

Then, about one week ago Spotlight broke on all the three systems. About the same time +/- a couple of days).

On the desktop I now have the "blue lake, red backpack" image. The preview in Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen show this image.
On the two laptops there is no image, just a solid blue background. The preview in Settings -> Personalization -> Lock Screen show a solid grey background.

What could be wrong here? I guess this must be due to a bug somewhere (maybe one of the (few) updates to 1903)?

Hi!

Thanks for the quick response!! I will check out the tutorial!

It is a bit suspicious that the feature breaks on three systems at about the same time .

- - - Updated - - -

Hello again,

After having applied the fix on all three PC's (and waiting 24+ hours), my three PC's are now all behaving the same way: Unfortunately Spotlight is still not working. All PC's now shows the "blue lake, red backpack" image (it also shows in the preview in Settings on all three).

This was a bit disappointing as I have successfully used this fix in the past on several systems...
BTW: I see that KBKB4501375 was installed on all the three PC's at about the same time as Spotlight broke.

Hi Bastet,
Yes, just doublechecked my sync settings and it is off on all three PC's.

FWIW there's also an undocumented "feature" - Spotlight updates will be disabled if your network connection is set to 'metered' which you can check in Network Settings.

Hi,
Just a short update. I have tried to repair the Windows installation on one of my PC's by doing an in-place upgrade as described in:
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

I used the Windows 10 with Media Creation Tool. I selected "Keep personal files and apps".

The repair/upgrade did not seem to have any effect on the Spotlight problem. Windows ended up with build 18362.239.

I guess the next step will have to be a full reinstall of Windows, viping everything (maybe "Keep personal files only" will do).

However, I find that this too costly. Doing a full reinstall on multiple PC's maybe once or twice a year just to keep Spotlight going is not worth it.

Here are a couple of observations (valid for all the three PC's I think):

• After a reboot I can observe that a process called "Microsoft Contents" (the icon is a color checkered Windows icon) runs for a short while (see screendump).
• I can see see a process called "Windows Default Lock Screen" (LockApp.exe, C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.LockApp_cw5n1h2txyewy\LockApp.exe) is mostly Suspended, but runs for a few seconds after getting back from a locked screen.
• When selecting a Picture as a lock screen background, I do not get any "fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen", even if this setting has been turned on.

My

network connection has not been set to 'metered' .

Sorry for necroing, but did you ever solve this problem? I have the exact same problem and am stuck with the exact same image. Not only that, other than the picture not changing there is also nothing else displayed - the location, whether I like etc. Just the plain picture.

I believe this *might* be my own doing, as I have either deleted certain programs (I believed I removed or disabled Bing) or have disabled them from startup. I don't know when the problem started so I can't tell which program it was (and I don't honestly remember what I messed around with, been a while now).
I can't for the life of me find on the internet whether it's necessary to have Bing on the PC, and I have also tried every method to resolve this that I could find online. Would appreciate any help, I love the changing pictures and would like to see them rotating again, with the option to mark what I like and see their location.