Problem, Action Center stopped working correctly

Hi,

Having issues with Action Center since yesterday. Two things can happen 1) will not open when clicked, or 2) will open, briefly, for one or two seconds, and will close itself, while not allowing any click on it.

I already did a restore to the day before, but problem persists.

This is driving me nuts. Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Just noticed that every time I try to access the notification center, I get this on event log:

Faulting application name: ShellExperienceHost.exe, version: 10.0.10240.16425, time stamp: 0x55bec5f5
Faulting module name: Windows.UI.Xaml.dll, version: 10.0.10240.16431, time stamp: 0x55c9bf27
Exception code: 0xc000027b
Fault offset: 0x0000000000464bd7
Faulting process id: 0x174c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d0f2de16269f61
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\ShellExperienceHost.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.Xaml.dll
Report Id: d2c7335d-5504-4431-b0c3-cb7678d0fff4
Faulting package full name: Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_10.0.10240.16384_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy
Faulting package-relative application ID: App

But have no idea what to do with this.

Hi,
Multiple Problems with Task Bar in Windows10 - Windows 10 Forums
- sounds similar (no answers!).
From that: All of a sudden, left clicking the Windows icon, Cortana icon or the Notification icon did nothing.
- what happens if you try the first two?

Now, before a crash (e.g. after login) what state is ShellExperienceHost.exe in? (Task Man, Details)
Mine is suspended.
I have a vague memory of sthg about this...

This suggests what it does in part, and sthg you could try
Fix Windows Shell Experience Host process using too much memory/CPU | WebSetNet

dalchina said:

Hi,
Multiple Problems with Task Bar in Windows10 - Windows 10 Forums
- sounds similar (no answers!).
From that: All of a sudden, left clicking the Windows icon, Cortana icon or the Notification icon did nothing.
- what happens if you try the first two?

Now, before a crash (e.g. after login) what state is ShellExperienceHost.exe in? (Task Man, Details)
Mine is suspended.
I have a vague memory of sthg about this...

Windows and Cortana icons work just fine.

I found this about ShellExperienceHost.exe: if its in suspended mode, the action center pane opens, and the closes by itself. If its Running, the action center pane does not open, and a new ShellExperienceHost.exe process is spawned.

I have no idea when/how it switches between Suspended and Running.

Have also tried the powershell trick before. Also the sfc and dism tricks. No help. I think my only option right now is to rebuild the user profile.

Hello,

I was able to fix the problem. I used procmon to trace the SellExperienceHost.exe process, and noticed that the process would exit after trying to access c:\Windows\Fonts\ARIALN.TTF, and that call resulted in ACCESS DENIED.

So, I deleted font Arial Narrow. Problem solved. May need to re-install it, I think it comes with Office, and maybe it got corrupted somehow meanwhile.

All I know, after a restart, I have action center back

I hope this helps other people.

Cya!

voiprodrigo said:

Hello,

I was able to fix the problem. I used procmon to trace the SellExperienceHost.exe process, and noticed that the process would exit after trying to access c:\Windows\Fonts\ARIALN.TTF, and that call resulted in ACCESS DENIED.

So, I deleted font Arial Narrow. Problem solved. May need to re-install it, I think it comes with Office, and maybe it got corrupted somehow meanwhile.

All I know, after a restart, I have action center back

I hope this helps other people.

Cya!

Thank you voiprodrigo!

The action center stopped working for me as well (nothing happens when I click on the icon or when I press win+a). I'm not exactly sure when it started bugging, but I installed Office 2016 a few days ago and noticed the problem the day after...

I took all arial fonts from a computer running win8 and office 2013 and reinstalled all Arial fonts on my laptop. It suddenly started to work again.

Vey strange!... but all right now.
Thanks again!

I felt compelled to register on the forum only to thank you guys for pointing this out!!! This crashing action center was giving me nightmares, and I would have never figured out it had anything to do with a corrupt font!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH GUYS!!!

bolisg said:

Thank you voiprodrigo!
...

I took all arial fonts from a computer running win8 and office 2013 and reinstalled all Arial fonts on my laptop. It suddenly started to work again.

...

I just had a ta-da! moment ... or perhaps an oh-duh would be better.

The problem is that this issue is sporadic, not everyone seems to have it, and no solution seems permanent.

However, my ta-da was that even if replacing the fonts with older versions was a fix, why was it temporary, which led to the realization (oh-duh) that office gets regular updates (both announced and quiet); and that included in these updates may be some self-maintenance, some of which probably consists of updating the fonts.

While this won't solve the original problem, it at least would explain why the fix won't last and a strategy for dealing with it.

By the way, there is never a need for me to reboot: I log out and log back in, which fixed the error state. Which means the issue is repaired by either the log out or the log in. My money is on the log out, because every time I do so while in this error state, I am notified that there is a program that doesn't want to shut down.

Now I need to track that down.