Taskbar system/app icons hidden/disappear, icons limited?

Very odd behavior for the past several days, would appreciate any input.

My taskbar icons, particularly the system icons (Network, Power, Volume) are disappearing/remaining hidden on their own. It's essentially like a carousel, where if I enable an icon in "Settings > Taskbar > Select which icons...", the one farthest to the right becomes hidden. Please see attached screen capture (or linked here)

Basically when I disenable & enable, say, Volume, the right-most icon gets bumped into hidden -- Network or Power, in the below screenshot. The affected icons remain hidden until I go back into Settings and enable it -- it does not re-appear even if I click on the upwards arrow to expand, nor if I choose "Always show all icons..."

What I've tried thus far, from helpful Tenforums archived posts:

• Alternate between Tablet and Desktop mode
• Scannow /sfc (no errors)
• Restore system (attempted one from 2 days and 2 weeks ago)
• Registry removal of any IconStreams/PastIconStreams (only IconStreams was present)
• Reinstall Windows with in-place upgrade ISO from Media Creation Tool

The only program that I imagine might have done something like this is Winaero Tweaker, which I installed last week to add some folder links to my "Quick access", so I tried uninstalling, but sadly, no effect.

Would really appreciate any tips. Hopefully it's something silly, as I'd much rather not do a Refresh and have reinstall my various apps/programs.

Thanks!

@aigo

I have similar behaviour, a quick restart of Explorer usually helps.

aigo said:

Would really appreciate any tips. Hopefully it's something silly, as I'd much rather not do a Refresh and have reinstall my various apps/programs.

I'm going to start with a very basic suggestion - have you tried increasing the size of the taskbar? In Windows 10, the two settings with taskbar two-rows-tall are almost the same size: the only difference is that the 'larger' one spreads the notification icons across two rows.

This isn't really a 'technical' fix - it's more of a really-quick-try thing in case the GUI just responds in the way you want it to.

In general, this view means the notification icons eat up less space, too - so it may be that with this size taskbar you decide to 'Always show all...' and it just works.

Something this small should definitely not have you doing system refreshes over and over again!

Caveat: I have no real experience with the Winaero Tweaker or similar - so not sure if this changes the way the GUI behaves in such a way that makes what I suggested irrelevant/impossible to perform.

maconnolly said:

I'm going to start with a very basic suggestion - have you tried increasing the size of the taskbar? In Windows 10, the two settings with taskbar two-rows-tall are almost the same size: the only difference is that the 'larger' one spreads the notification icons across two rows.

This isn't really a 'technical' fix - it's more of a really-quick-try thing in case the GUI just responds in the way you want it to.

In general, this view means the notification icons eat up less space, too - so it may be that with this size taskbar you decide to 'Always show all...' and it just works.

Something this small should definitely not have you doing system refreshes over and over again!

Caveat: I have no real experience with the Winaero Tweaker or similar - so not sure if this changes the way the GUI behaves in such a way that makes what I suggested irrelevant/impossible to perform.

Thanks for the suggestion, really hoping it's something small like this that can resolve this. I've long uninstalled Winaero Tweaker -- and it had no tweaks for the taskbar icons.

So regardless of how I display the taskbar icons, the bumped off ones (right most, farthest) become hidden. In this case, I stretched it out to two rows tall with all icons displayed and the Power and Network icons still both get bumped off


Basically what I previously observed -- it's almost as if there is a limit of 4-5 icons that can be displayed, and each system app exceeding it is pushed out or "hidden". Yet It's not a space constraint -- all the icons can be displayed -- just not the ones that've been forced into this hidden mode. In this case, the ones I care about

aigo said:

Yet It's not a space constraint -- all the icons can be displayed -- just not the ones that've been forced into this hidden mode. In this case, the ones I care about

What behaviour allows all icons to display, simultaneously? Or am I misunderstanding and, whilst you mean that each different icon can be displayed (at a given point), not all together?

My line of thinking is that there'll be some obscure registry key that limits the total number of icons to be displayed at one time, perhaps. Internet searches haven't availed anything, though.

Edit: Apologies - I just noted that you had already looked in the relevant registry locations for the most obvious culprits.

Also, I see two Winamp icons - are they both for the same thing? Is one of them an obsolete instance that needs to be hovered over to make disappear (or end up being replaced)?

Another query: does each displayed icon actually reflect the application it is for (i.e. if you hover, or right-click, do you get the corresponding options for that application/service?)?

Just to absolutely clarify: there are no other Toolbars active? Can you describe exactly what else you have that is utilising real-estate on the taskbar? Quick launch? Links? Anything manually created?

Sometimes Windows throws up odd behaviour when specific combinations of toolbars are activated in particular locations (one example was Windows 7 with Quick Launch and "Desktop" shortcut, if activated on the bottom row in the wrong order, snapping them to ridiculous positions when you locked the taskbar).

maconnolly said:

What behaviour allows all icons to display, simultaneously? Or am I misunderstanding and, whilst you mean that each different icon can be displayed (at a given point), not all together?

My line of thinking is that there'll be some obscure registry key that limits the total number of icons to be displayed at one time, perhaps. Internet searches haven't availed anything, though.

Edit: Apologies - I just noted that you had already looked in the relevant registry locations for the most obvious culprits.

Also, I see two Winamp icons - are they both for the same thing? Is one of them an obsolete instance that needs to be hovered over to make disappear (or end up being replaced)?

Another query: does each displayed icon actually reflect the application it is for (i.e. if you hover, or right-click, do you get the corresponding options for that application/service?)?

Just to absolutely clarify: there are no other Toolbars active? Can you describe exactly what else you have that is utilising real-estate on the taskbar? Quick launch? Links? Anything manually created?

Sometimes Windows throws up odd behaviour when specific combinations of toolbars are activated in particular locations (one example was Windows 7 with Quick Launch and "Desktop" shortcut, if activated on the bottom row in the wrong order, snapping them to ridiculous positions when you locked the taskbar).

Thanks for all the suggestions:

• Winamp appears twice because I was annoyed it was getting lost/hidden, as well, so I installed Winamp agent, whose purpose is to always appear in the taskbar -- sometimes when Winamp becomes hidden like Volume/Power, the agent is always there. It's intentional :)
• Yes, thankfully, the icons do correspond to the right system app/third-party app. Clicking on it does run it properly. It's just physically hidden until I go to Settings to dis/enable it that it returns back into view (BUT bumps another icon off the carousel)
• I have one toolbar, the Win7 traditional "Quick launch" installed, native function, non-third party. No other toolbars/link/manually created element. I do have the "Show desktop" button there, but it fortunately doesn't touch any of the taskbar items when used. I have tried locking and unlocking the taskbar many times without change. I also have Classic Shell running (installed day one of Windows), never had an issue, in case it looks different. Here's a full screencap of the start menu here :

I do hope it's a simple registry hack that's limiting the displayed icons to ~4-5, forcing the rightmost one go into hiding. But have no idea which key might be responsible...? Aside from IconStreams (which I've deleted manually, and used the Tenforums batch file that resets it and restarts Explorer.exe)

Much appreciated!

Still playing around to figure out a fix...

Tried another sfc /scannow and no difference.

Tried Ultimate Windows Tweaker to see if there's some hidden registry tweak to restore things, but nothing yet

aigo said:

Still playing around to figure out a fix...
Tried another sfc /scannow and no difference.
Tried Ultimate Windows Tweaker to see if there's some hidden registry tweak to restore things, but nothing yet

Apologies I haven't been able to come back between your posts.

Let's try something really simple, again, just in case we're missing the wood for the trees: have you tried to rebuild the icon cache via File Explorer? I know we have removed some registry keys, but I reckon it's worth a go. It isn't really logical in terms of what you are seeing that this would fix it (as this would generally fix icons displaying but with the wrong appearance, but given it'll take 30 seconds, worth a try).

Simple article here that talks through the locations to purge files from: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuil...che-windows-10

maconnolly said:

Apologies I haven't been able to come back between your posts.

Let's try something really simple, again, just in case we're missing the wood for the trees: have you tried to rebuild the icon cache via File Explorer? I know we have removed some registry keys, but I reckon it's worth a go. It isn't really logical in terms of what you are seeing that this would fix it (as this would generally fix icons displaying but with the wrong appearance, but given it'll take 30 seconds, worth a try).

Simple article here that talks through the locations to purge files from: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuil...che-windows-10

Thanks, I did go ahead and rebuild my Icon Cache a day or two, but forgot to mention it. I just performed the cache rebuild again. No change :/

I also un/re-installed Classic Shell in case that was confusing things.

Any further ideas appreciated