Twirling circle … blue background … “Just a moment”t

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I just powered up, got the login screen, typed in my login, and then I got a twirling circle, blue background, and the words “Just a moment…”. This continued for 10 minutes or more. Finally, my login screen appeared again, I logged in, and my desktop appeared. What could have caused this hiccup?

I am Windows 10, 20H2, Build 928, i7-i7-6500U (Skylake U). May Tuesday patches are hidden.

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Hard to say but I have noticed that when some updates were being installed and just recently on a few machines when ESET A/V was applying the latest update.

Never Say Never

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I just noticed that when I click on the Windows icon on the left side of the taskbar, the Start Menu does not come up. However, I can successfully to a search for the app I am looking for, “Settings”, for example. How do I get the Start button to work again?

BTW, about 10 days ago, I turned off the “Suggest ways to I can finish setting up my device to gt the most out of Windows” at Settings|System|Notifications & actions.

I’ve done a sfc /verifyonly and it says that there are no integrity violations.

After the “Just a moment” disappeared and the login screen appeared again, Windows Update was waiting with a “download” button to install an update for Windows Defender, 1.339.679.0 It installed successfully, according to Update History However, Reliability Monitor reports that the installation of 1.339.679 failed at 7:37 PM, the installation of 1.339.707.0 was successful at 7:37 PM and Windows Defender antivirus antimalware platform KB4052623 (Version 4.18.2104.14) installed at 8:11 PM.

Reliability Monitor also reports 250 critical events Windows Explorer stopped working …listed 249 times, the 1st time at 7:27 PM and and the 249th time at 7:38PM. The 250th critical event was “McAfee Module Core Service stopped working” at 7:41 PM.

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Most times a reboot will fix the issue with the start button.

Never Say Never

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cyberSAR wrote:

Most times a reboot will fix the issue with the start button.

True. Thanks for the advice.

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Hopefully a reboot, as suggested by @cyberSAR , has restored the use of your Start menu.

Reliability Monitor also reports 250 critical events Windows Explorer stopped working …listed 249 times, the 1st time at 7:27 PM and and the 249th time at 7:38PM. The 250th critical event was “McAfee Module Core Service stopped working” at 7:41 PM.

From the sounds of the above, it sounds to me like your installation of McAfee may have experienced a hiccup updating one of its core components, triggering the lack of use of explorer.exe, and just maybe even causing your issues accessing the Start menu.

However, that kind of behavior also could have come from an attempted installation of some type of malware on your system. If you haven’t already done so, it might be a good idea to run a scan of your entire system with McAfee to see what’s up. Also, be sure to have it scan for rootkits if it has that as a selectable option. If scanning for rootkits isn’t selectable as an added option during a scan of the entire system, perhaps it’s selectable as a stand-alone scan of some type.

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WCHS

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A McAfee scan would be good, I second that, but I would also suggest a full scan of your system with Malwarebytes Free. Go to Scanner -> Advanced scanners -> Custom Scan, and select everything, including ‘Scan for rootkits’, on the left and all of your drives on the right.

There’s probably no problem, but there’s no harm in doing it, and Malwarebytes is a better on-demand scanner than Mcafee.

Note: Malwarebytes is not a replacement for a regular antivirus program.

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