Icons Keep Disappearing From Taskbar - Windows 11

Anonymous
2022-09-07T13:59:50+00:00

I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 a few months ago, and ever since I've been having a problem where the icons disappear from the taskbar. It happens while I'm using the laptop as well as when it comes out of hibernation.

I know this can be fixed temporarily by restarting Windows Explorer in the task manager, but this is happening several times a day and it's getting annoying. Is there a permenant fix yet?

I'm using Windows 11 Home version 21H2 build 22000.856 on a HP laptop with an Intel i5 1035G1 processor and 8GB of RAM. The problem didn't exist when I was running Windows 10.

Thanks.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-06-27T17:19:17+00:00

    Honestly, I've just turned off the animations (Accessibility, Visual effects). That has been a solid fix on both my machines.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-21T13:20:32+00:00

    Well after doing this,

    (This is in Windows 11)

    Right click open desktop space, and select;

    • PERSONALIZATION,
    • TASKBAR,
    • TASKBAR BEHAVIORS, Then toggle either,
    • SHOW MY TASKBAR ON ALL DISPLAYS, or,
    • SHARE ANY WINDOW FROM MY TASKBAR (I toggled both, but don’t remember which one actually fixed it.)

    The icons disappeared only one more time on Nov 7th, but not again since then... Strange!

    Show My Taskbar on all displays is greyed out and not able to select it..

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-14T08:50:13+00:00

    For me Steps to reproduce:

    1. Ensure you have multiple desktops
    2. Open the same app on two desktops
    3. Open apps on one desktop but no the others
    4. Switch between them

    The apps on one desktop and not on the other lose their icons

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-15T12:20:54+00:00

    Sadly, it only works for apps that were not minimized when invisible. A better workaround requires a shortcut that "un-minimizes" all windows and then minimizes them... I tried WIN+M for minimizing and WIN+SHIFT+M for un-minimizing, but the latter only un-minimizes the ones that were minimized with the former, so it's also not an ideal workaround...

    EDIT: By doing virtual desktop switching and all of these hotkey combinations in quick succession, something weird happened. One of the "stuck" icons was not 100% invisible, but it was shifted down so that only the tip of the icon was showing at the bottom of the taskbar...

    What if the icons aren't missing (it's not a problem of corrupted thumb/icon cache as that workaround doesn't work), instead there's some animation glitch that drops them to a (very far off-screen) Y position?

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-02-15T01:07:31+00:00

    The only upside to all this is that I'm not alone.

    BUT I HAVE A NEW FIX!

    OK, "fix" is a bit strong, but this is easier than restarting Windows Explorer. Win-D to show desktop and then bring it back. I triggers their little "bounce up" animation the way minimize / restore or change desktops does and this gets the blank ones to refresh.

    I can reliably trigger the loss by switching desktops around I just went 6/6 on restoring the lost ones by Win-D.

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