PC stuck at a blurry login screen

Anonymous
2019-07-31T17:27:31+00:00

I recently updated my PC and now it is stuck at the login screen. It boots up normally to the lock screen, after pressing any button or using the mouse it goes to the next screen for the login but does not load the password box and the screen remains blurry. I can use the power, network and easy of access buttons but that is it.

Safe mode will not start, restarting 3 times does not take me to the repair screen, ctrl+alt+delete does nothing, I even tried using ctrl+F8 and nothing has worked. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix/bypass the login screen?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows Hello, lock screen and sign-in

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Anonymous
2019-09-05T01:28:41+00:00

***FIX***

Initial Steps (Enter Recovery Environment):

  1. Enter Recovery Environment (If you are unable to get into the recovery environment via a menu, you can turn off your system during the initial boot when the Windows logo is on the screen and the dots are circling. Do this at least twice and you'll see the message "Starting Automatic Repair").
  2. Once the recovery environment loads select "See advanced repair options", then "Troubleshoot", then "Advanced options".

Method #1 (Via Command prompt - assumes basic command prompt knowledge):

  1. Click "Command Prompt".
  2. Change directory to your boot drive if necessary (for example, type c: and press <ENTER>)
  3. Type "CD %windir%\system32\config\systemprofile\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\caches <ENTER>
  4. Type "DIR <ENTER>" and make sure you are in the right path. You should see one or more .db files -- usually just cversions.3.db. If there are no files in this directory see the addendum below.
  5. Type "DEL *.* <ENTER>"
  6. Reboot and test

Method #2 (Via Safe Mode and File Explorer - may require adjusting permissions):

  1. Click "Start-up Settings" and "Restart" to reboot the system and get the option to enter Safe Mode.)
  2. At the Startup Settings screen press "4" to boot in Safe Mode.
  3. Log into your administrator-level account.
  4. Open File Explorer and browse to**%windir%\system32\config** (example: c:\windows\system32\config)
  5. Gain access to systemprofile (you may be able to just double-click it to gain access)
  6. Drill down to**%windir%\system32\config\systemprofile\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\caches**
  7. Delete all files inside caches
  8. Reboot and test

Addendum

Some have reported that it is necessary to clear the caches folder of the local user account also or instead of the systemprofile account. If the above procedure does not work for you, delete the file(s) in the local user cache folder (located in %localappdata%\microsoft\windows\caches) using either Safe Mode or the recovery environment command prompt.

Good luck!

Special thanks to John_E_M for first suggesting the localappdata caches folder, and to Artaeos who also narrowed down the problem to the systemprofile caches folder at the same time I did. Great job guys!

**Edited 9/6/2019 to add command prompt method, local account provision, and acknowledgements**

-Forjo

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-09-01T20:42:43+00:00

    That sounds similar but it's a different issue. First of all, everyone in this thread that has this problem is on a Dell notebook. But it certainly conceivable that other machines could be affected. More importantly, the fact that these machines are able to log in successfully sounds like it's the group policy settings.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-09-02T04:40:16+00:00

    THIS IS NOT ONLY HAPPENING TO DELL NOTEBOOKS!

    This happened twice on my new rig (specs below). First on Friday. All I did was restart and the login promt came up as normal so I ignored the whole thing. Then it happened again last night around midnight, but this time I was stuck. Did everything I could to get the login prompt to show but nothing worked. I could only boot to safe mode by holding shift and clicking restart. Eventually did a hard shutdown from safe mode and when it restarted the login prompt suddenly showed up again... Not sure what's going on but Dell notebooks aren't the only devices affected.

    Asus Prime Z370-A II (BIOS 1201)

    Core i7-8700k 3.7 GHz

    Duke GeForce RTX 2080

    Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 1TB

    G.Skill TridentZ DDR4 3200 MHz 4 x 8GB

    Windows 10 Pro 1903 10.0.18362.295

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-09-02T07:06:20+00:00

    If you are able to login to Windows at all, you have a different problem. Literally every other person in this thread has a two or three year old Dell notebook and they were all broken on August 15th. Also none of these affected machines can get into safe mode by holding shift and clicking restart. That only works when done from within Windows not at the login screen.

    I've had five customers come in with this problem now. All the troubleshooting myself and a few others in this thread have done got the symptoms nailed down quite precisely at this point.

    It might be worth following this thread in case we get a concrete fix that might relate to your machine. If you want to keep troubleshooting further I recommend finding a way to reproduce your problem so you can find a better matching thread or start a new one.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-09-02T11:53:38+00:00

    Mine is a Dell desktop, actually, doing the exact same thing

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