Windows update 24H2 Windows start search not working

Question

Windows update 24H2 Windows start search not working

Anonymous

My system updated to Windows 11 24H2 on 12/4/2024. Since then, the search function on start does not work at all. The moment I type anything into the search bar a blue line keeps moving across the start box and never resolves. I've gone into services.msc and both restarted and refreshed search. I've also gone into search in settings, selected enhanced, and had it index everything. The search function appears to be broken and can't be fixed. Yes, I've turned the system on and off several times. I also run search and indexing troubleshooting and it can't find anything.

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Answer accepted by question author

John DeV 170.4K Independent Advisor

Hi, good day! I'm John Dev a Windows user like you and I'll be happy to assist you today. I know this has been difficult for you, Rest assured, I'm going to do my best to help you.

Please check and try the suggested methods in the support article in the link below if it helps.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/w...

Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns by clicking the "Reply" button at the end of my response. I will appreciate it.

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor

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3 additional answers

Answer 1

I was having this same issue as well. Super frustrating and tore up tons of time trying to solve it. Tried everything I could think of including a repair install to keep apps and files the same. But the moment the 12/10/2024 KB5048685 security update would get installed, then after reinstall my Windows 11 search would come up as a blank pane upon pressing windows button and searching for anything at all in that pane.

It was the final solution in the below document that worked for me.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/shell-experience/fix-problems-in-windows-search

I'd found that by signing into another local account on the machine - this same search issue wasn't present. Signing into that other account, I was finally able to delete this Windows 11 folder (prior to that I couldn't get around the fact that a process was running from that folder - even with command line instructions to delete it). This local account may need to have administrator rights. Here's the Win11 folder to delete (where %userprofile% is your actual user profile):

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy

Upon logging back into my affected user account the search functionality was restored!

Answer 2

Anonymous

Not working for me.

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Answer 3

Hi John,

Thank you for referring me to such a complete checklist of solution approaches. The first one concerning the Windows Font Cache Service has so far fixed the problem. I had already done check for updates, run search and indexing troubleshooter (plus reindex), and restarted Windows search. None of those worked. I'll bookmark this solution list in case I have more issues with this.

One thing that was funny about the list is in the first one it says to use the Windows search to bring up services.msc. If Windows search isn't working, you can't use the search box to fix it. Microsoft needs to change that on the page. I used Windows button + R to then find services.msc.

I'm also having another problem since updating to 24H2 that is much more troublesome if you would like to help further. Ever since this update, my system takes a long time before it's fully up to speed. I'm talking 10 minutes or more. Even the opening screen where I enter my PIN takes longer to come up. And after putting in my PIN, I can't get Outlook or Chrome to launch right away. Even after I wait for a while, Outlook and Chrome take longer to load than they used to.

I've checked Task Manager. My CPU is at less than 10% and my RAM at least than 28%. Hard disk doesn't show a lot of activity. I've looked at processes and don't see anything that's consuming a lot of resources. Nothing obvious is showing up. I've made sure to turn off a lot of apps at start up that were unnecessary.

Thanks,

Don