News & Interests pops up then disappears

tzr916 · 02 May 2021

I have eight win10 machines in my home. They are all up to date, and today "News & Interests" showed up on all eight machines (after rebooting). They all work as expected except my primary laptop, which shows the Icon (or Icon and Text) just fine in the taskbar, but when I hover (or click), the feed window just pops up for 1 second with the spinning icon then disappears.

EDIT: This problem also happens with Windows Search and Cortana. Cannot type anything into Windows Search, just blinks and goes blank. And Cortana window pops up for 1 second with circle icon then disappears.

Bree · 02 May 2021

tzr916 said:

...I understand that I will get suggestions to simply disable it permanently, or wait for the next win 10 update, etc... But I would rather hear from anyone that has actually seen this issue and has a remedy.

Of my 6 machines only one has seen it appear so far. I'm in two minds whether to leave it turned on or not, but it seems to be working normally.

You could try disabling 'open on hover' or even turning it off completely. Then turn it back on and see if then works properly.

Customization - How to Add or Remove News and Interests icon on Taskbar in Windows 10 | Windows Questions

Enable or Disable Open News and Interests on Hover in Windows 10

tzr916 · 02 May 2021

Already tried disable/enable.
Hover enable/disable is only for developer version of windows(currently).

Bree · 02 May 2021

tzr916 said:

Already tried disable/enable.
Hover enable/disable is only for developer version of windows(currently).

....so I realised after I posted

The only other suggestion I can make is make sure your Store apps are up to date, particularly Cortana. It seems the Search Application C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\SearchApp.exe that runs whenever the News and Interest pop-up appears may be an integral part of Cortana.

News & Interests pops up then disappears-image.png

tzr916 · 03 May 2021

Just found out my Cortana, and Windows Search box also do the same thing! Type something into Windows Search and it just blanks out, resets, won't pop up.... click cortana and it pops up with the circle then disappears.

Already tried:
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
....then
sfc /scannow
....and reboot

WTF is going on with this laptop???

Bree · 03 May 2021

tzr916 said:

Just found out my Cortana, and Windows Search box also do the same thing! ... ....WTF is going on with this laptop???

That is actually a good sign. It means you have a general problem with the built in apps, rather than some obscure new bug in News and Interests.

Try this tutorial:

Reinstall and Re-register Apps in Windows 10

tzr916 · 03 May 2021

Dang, that didn't help either. Completed restoring all apps for current account, then all apps for all accounts. And when I try to restore just Cortana I get an error about the path...

Code:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> PowerShell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "& {$manifest = (Get-AppxPackage *Windows.Cortana*).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml' ; Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifest}"
= : The term '=' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the
spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:5
+ & { = (Get-AppxPackage *Windows.Cortana*).InstallLocation + '\AppxMan ...
+     ~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (=:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException


cmdlet Add-AppxPackage at command pipeline position 1
Supply values for the following parameters:
Path:
Add-AppxPackage : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Path'. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument
that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.
At line:1 char:83
+ ... pxManifest.xml' ; Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register }
+                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Add-AppxPackage], ParameterBindingValidationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.AddAppxP
   ackageCommand

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Bree · 03 May 2021

tzr916 said:

...when I try to restore just Cortana I get an error about the path...

That's @Brink's tutorial so I'll let him comment on that......

tzr916 · 03 May 2021

And now after doing all those commands the Windows Clock/Calendar in the bottom right corner fails to pop up too...

Trying to add a user account to this PC as a test, won't let me, pops up and disappears...

EDIT: I was able to add a test user account to this PC using 'control userpasswords2'. When I sign into that account everything works - Windows Search, Cortana, Calendar/Clock, News & Interests. But when I sign back into my normal account all of that is broken.

Brink · 03 May 2021

Hello @tzr916,

Not sure what you may have done, but it may be best to try a repair install of Windows 10 below to fix this without losing anything.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

News & Interests pops up then disappears

News & Interests pops up then disappears (also Search and Cortana)