Task bar, cortana, and start menu not working

[Bearcalledred]

Hello,
This issue just popped up after restarting my computer today.
Earlier, all the task bar icons were showing and I could see the time/date, but clicking on them would do nothing. Also whenever I tried to open pictures with "Photos" I would get an error message about something timing out and I would have to use windows explorer.

So I restarted, and when I booted my computer up again, the task bar icons never showed up and the time and date is gone. I can't click on cortana and clicking the windows icon will bring up nothing. I've restarted twice since then but nothing has helped so far.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Trouble]

Have you tried the Safe Mode trick yet to see if it helps, at least temporarily?
At the sign-in screen, don't sign in, use the power icon in the bottom right corner, while holding down the shift key to restart your computer.
Advance through the troubleshooting screen to Startup Settings and then when presented with the options screen choose #4 Safe Mode.
See if the Start Button (Windows Logo on taskbar far left) works. If so give it a minute or two and then reboot normally and see if that changes anything in a normal boot now.

 

[Bearcalledred]

Have you tried the Safe Mode trick yet to see if it helps, at least temporarily?
At the sign-in screen, don't sign in, use the power icon in the bottom right corner, while holding down the shift key to restart your computer.
Advance through the troubleshooting screen to Startup Settings and then when presented with the options screen choose #4 Safe Mode.
See if the Start Button (Windows Logo on taskbar far left) works. If so give it a minute or two and then reboot normally and see if that changes anything in a normal boot now.

That did the trick, thanks so much for the help!

 

[Trouble]

Good to know that it still works.
You can probably expect the problem to reoccur at some point in the future. As I mentioned above the Safe Mode trick is basically a temporary fix.

 

[Bearcalledred]

Good to know that it still works.
You can probably expect the problem to reoccur at some point in the future. As I mentioned above the Safe Mode trick is basically a temporary fix.

It's never completely disappeared like this before but it has done the thing where clicking the date/time and windows brings up nothing...
is it a Windows 10 issue or my computer?

 

[Trouble]

is it a Windows 10 issue or my computer?

NO idea really.
We've been seeing it for a long time now, often following Windows Updates.
AND.... It doesn't seem like anybody has been able to zero in on the cause or a permanent fix.
IF I had to guess, I would likely guess a third party software product of some kind, but......
That doesn't explain why something as simple as booting into safe mode and then rebooting into normal mode seems to at least temporarily fix it.