Windows 8 Start Screen and Apps Not Responding

This was on a pretty fresh and unused terminal server where I was actually setting up old desktop-style applications.  The only one I had installed that was non-Microsoft was the time tile :)

Other than that I can see Solitare & MineSweeper.

I've made a new VM for my purposes (running the Microsoft Platform Verification tool for our own desktop application) at the moment and will wait a few days before fiddling again.

Assuming that you have verified that the app is uninstalled and you have restarted your system, what I would suggest is to look through your Modern apps and see if there's another app that may be causing this problem. I have a few installed which I can confirm that they're safe:

Skype, Bing, Google, TeamViewer, Microsoft's official apps (like travel, email, etc.), Maps, GMaps, ...

The app should have a live tile (since the crash is happening in that service). I suggest you to go through your apps and uninstall the ones you think might be causing the problem. Then restart explorer after each one and test. Worst case scenario, you'll install them after you fix your problem.

By the way, I may have said this before, but I think the platform should be more robust. By that I mean, a single app should not be able to cause that much problem for the entire OS. Especially now that Microsoft has put so much effort into sandboxing the apps. Heck, the browsers now don't crash even if one tab crashes...

Based on your suggestion I went and find the command line for removing Windows Store apps :)

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Remove-Windows-Store-Apps-a00ef4a4#content

To run it for me I used Ctrl+Alt+Delete (Ctrl+Alt+End in an RDP session actually) to bring up task manager, and used another logon on the machine (local administrator account that doesn't have Windows Store access) to kill Explorer in my user session.

Then from task manager you can start an elevated powershell prompt (Use New Task-> "powershell" and tick the box to have it run with admin privileges).  You need to enable scripts to run - see http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh847748.aspx.  The simple command is to type

set-executionpolicy unrestricted

and then follow the prompts.

Finally you can download the script from the TechNet gallery and follow the steps in the webpage - specifically "Example 2".

I was able to remove the time tile app that way.

HOWEVER: The problem still remains anyway :)

OK. I SOLVED THE PROBLEM.

As many have said, I had the time app too. To be precise, the app's name is "Tile Time". I believe this is the link for the app:

http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/tile-time/3363b19f-e3cf-4355-bcfa-ad49cb066d8c

Anyway, after a painful process, I finally got to uninstall the app and instantly it fixed my problem. If you have this issue too, try uninstalling it.

Note:

Sometimes you click the uninstall button and you think the app is uninstalled but when you restart the explorer (or sometimes even the Windows), the app is still there.

Here's what I did:

I pinned the app to the start screen and moved it to the left so I can access it immediately. It took me about 30 explorer restarts to get here!

Then I right clicked on it and chose uninstall and confirmed. (The whole process of 4 clicks took about 1.5 seconds).

I don't know if there is a command-line for uninstalling Store apps, but this is what I did.

Good luck ;)

Same thing happened to me. The problem started with the Time app. I successfully uninstalled it, got back my start screen working. However, since then many apps (in particular the weather app and Skype app) are not working. They are always stuck at the load screen. The Windows event logs show errors related to TimeBroker as well.

Any help is much appreciated.