Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.

ohante · 24 Sep 2018

I've found a number of posts on how to turn off Windows 10 News notifications, but none on how to get them working again if enabling it in settings doesn't work. I stopped getting new news notifications on my notebook in the past few weeks. A monthly rollup went through in that time, but I don't really remember if that triggered the problem.

The icon in the system tray has been solid white for weeks. At one point a new notification actually did appear, and I was hoping the issue would go away after that successfully opened the new news story. But the problem has persisted.

My Windows 10 PC showed no new notifications until I clicked the non-white icon, and saw no articles listed. However when I exited the notification pane, Windows grabbed 3 new articles, showed the white icon that then did show the articles.

I've tried disabling notifications, exiting News, going back in and re-enabling it again. But that didn't get them working again.

Has anyone seen this before and/or know how I might me able to kick-start getting this working again on my notebook?

dalchina · 24 Sep 2018

You could try uninstalling the app and reinstalling it... (see Tutorials) or simply wait for the next feature update delivered over the next couple of months or so.

ohante · 24 Sep 2018

dalchina said:

You could try uninstalling the app and reinstalling it... (see Tutorials) or simply wait for the next feature update delivered over the next couple of months or so.

Good suggestion dalchina. I'd considered that but couldn't find info on the process. I'll look for that tutorial here. Thanks!

dalchina · 24 Sep 2018

Windows 10 Tutorial Index | Windows 10 Tutorials
search for
uninstall
finds it fast, then search that for News and follow instructions at the start of the relevant section.

likewise search for
re-register

ohante · 24 Sep 2018

Excellent! I found the 'Reset' option in the Settings > Apps > News menu and ran that. Rebooted and all's good again. Thanks so very much for pointing the way to the solution dalchina.

dalchina · 24 Sep 2018

Good- even simpler!

ohante · 24 Sep 2018

Love and really appreciate all the excellent support I've gotten in these forums from the many very informed folks like yourself over the years dalchina.

ohante · 26 Nov 2018

It wasn't long after I thought this problem was resolved by resetting or reinstalling MS News that I found I would stop getting notifications by the end of the day. I've always left my notebook on 24/7. 1st indication is that the News icon on the start menu looses animation. I've ended up regularly rebooting very day, and all will be good for an hour to several hours.

Tonight I noticed the problem may be with the Action Center, as I ran the screen recorder and noticed I didn't get the usual notification when I stopped the recording. I'm also not getting a fly-out notification and audio alert when I insert a USB flash drive. Although I do get both when I click 'Safely Remove Hardware. I thought if I could track down where that was set, I might find a solution for all the Action Center failures. But nothing I found online pointed me to the setting.

I did find info online for problems with Action Center. 1st to check 'Settings > System > Notifications & Actions' to confirm MS News notifications ware enabled. Then 'Settings > Privacy > Background Apps' and check to see if 'Let apps run in the background' is enabled, and if not, enable it and reboot. I found it enabled, but I tried disabling MS News in 'Notifications & Actions', and then disabling 'Let apps run in the background' and rebooted. On reboot, I enabled both again and rebooted. But it had no effect.

After rebooting and seeing the News icon animation working and receiving news notifications, I waited for a few hours after the animated icon stopped, and went into Event Viewer and reviewed everything after reboot to see if I could find what was causing the problem. But I really don't know enough about the OS to be able to interpret what I'm seeing there. I can post the relevant part of the log I copied to both vtx and txt files if anyone thinks the problem might be listed in there somewhere.

Thanks again for any feed back on this.

dalchina · 26 Nov 2018

USB: I get these two:

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.-untitled.png

I had just unplugged and plugged in the device, so captured the left from win 10, and the rt from a program USB Safely Remove. I do get sounds in both cases.

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.-1.jpg

Some Settings...

Also see:
Turn On or Off Notification of USB Issues in Windows 10 | Tutorials

Here you can test the sounds you should hear (top two)

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.-2.jpg

Hope that's some little help.

ohante · 26 Nov 2018

Thanks for checking that dalchina. Your 'Notifications & actions' settings menu looks different from mine. And the one on my Notebook looks different from the one on my PC, which might look more like yours.

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.-untitled2.jpg

I've always had system sounds either set to 'None' in Control Panel, or disabled in Sound Mixer. But I still get a fly-out notification when I 'Safely Remove Hardware', and that comes with an entirely different audio alert then the one listed in the Control Panel Sounds menu. Both Device connect and Device disconnect sounds play fine when I test them. But the Action Center sound alerts are different. The fly-out for disconnecting looks like this.

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.-untitled.jpg

So I'll keep trying to find some info on addressing problems with the Action Center, as news and the screen video recorder notifications aren't working either.

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.

Need help getting Windows 10 News notifications working again.

Problem still not resolved - Action Center issue?