Server 2016 Start Menu not working...

[Kevin Nickson]

For some reason, the Start Menu on several of my 2016 VDA's stopped working. There are a bunch of Event Log entries that basically point to a Cortana problem or a "ShellExperienceHost" issue. None of the fixes I've tried fix this. Has anyone else had this issue? Thanks.

[Erik Jakobson]

Check the registry key (on the machine with problems)

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx\AppxAllUserStore

 

Now check on a working server, export the key and merge it on the faulting server. Worked for me

 

[Ryan Barber]

I did Export the AppxAllUserStore from a working Server from this location: HKLM\software\Microsoft\windows\currentversion\appx\AppxAllUserStore and imported it into my broken server and the start menu is working once again! I did notice before I imported the registry keys that the broken one was missing a few keys under the AppxAllUserStore key. At least I know what to do to get it going again if it breaks again. Thanks!

[DanielViklund]

4 minutes ago, Steve Rast said:

 

I can confirm that. Same problem as here described since upgrade to CVAD 1909 :/

 

 

I solved my issue with "enabled" the following UPM policy "Disable automatic configuration" under Profile Management/Advanced Settings

[Patrick Matula]

This is the solution: https://twitter.com/p_matula/status/1319312737290358787

[Marco Piesold]

Have you tried the reg key for the start menu cache problem? https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/391754-windows-2016-start-menu-blank-icons-with-715-cu1/?page=4

[Kevin Nickson]

The issue is that the Start Menu won't display at all. You click it with the left mouse button and nothing happens at all. It's only happening for about 5% of my users and logging out and back in fixes it as the user hits a different server. I am unable to recreate this but I have a coworker who has the issue and I'm trying to work with her current session to fix. This is a very odd problem.

[Kevin Nickson]

FYI, a profile reset fixes this issue but I can't really reset every user's profile every day.

[Kevin Nickson]

I figured it out (actually a fellow engineer figured it out). We were excluding the !ctx_localappdata!\Packages directory for roaming profiles. We were NOT excluding !ctx_localappdata!\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat. Apparently they can either be excluded together with no problems or they both have to be included.

 

https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/387174-windows-server-2016-rds-startmenu-problems/

[Kevin Nickson]

So the problem with the Start Menu not working has returned. I haven't made any policy changes or excluded/included any files or directories from user profiles. If anyone has had this issue, please let me know how you fixed it. Users click the Start Button and nothing happens. Thanks.

[Ryan Barber]

Kevin I am also seeing the same issue. We have added the 2 exclusions mentioned in this article https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX224835 but it only helped for a day. We are now back to the start button not working on one of  our Server 2016 Citrix servers. Were you able to find anything else out on this?

[Kevin Nickson]

4 minutes ago, Ryan Barber said:

Kevin I am also seeing the same issue. We have added the 2 exclusions mentioned in this article https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX224835 but it only helped for a day. We are now back to the start button not working on one of  our Server 2016 Citrix servers. Were you able to find anything else out on this?

I have not been able to find a fix for this. I opened a support case with Citrix but they basically said it's a Microsoft issue and closed the case. I'm still looking for the fix and scratching my head.

[Adam Clark1709155681]

On 6/7/2018 at 4:29 PM, Kevin Nickson said:

I have not been able to find a fix for this. I opened a support case with Citrix but they basically said it's a Microsoft issue and closed the case. I'm still looking for the fix and scratching my head.

Did you ever find a solution Kevin? I'm having the exact same issues on one of my servers, even with CU2 applied.

[Kevin Nickson]

2 minutes ago, Adam Clark1709155681 said:

Did you ever find a solution Kevin? I'm having the exact same issues on one of my servers, even with CU2 applied.

I have NOT been able to find a fix for this. It's killing me. I have 80 servers right now and it's hit or miss which ones have the issue or not. We get a couple calls a day on this and for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

[Ryan Barber]

1 hour ago, Erik Jakobson said:

Check the registry key (on the machine with problems)

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx\AppxAllUserStore

 

Now check on a working server, export the key and merge it on the faulting server. Worked for me

 

I don't see that key under HKCU but I do see that under HKLM

[Hardeep Singh1709156982]

On 6/28/2018 at 9:52 AM, Ryan Barber said:

I did Export the AppxAllUserStore from a working Server from this location: HKLM\software\Microsoft\windows\currentversion\appx\AppxAllUserStore and imported it into my broken server and the start menu is working once again!

I've tried every fix and this is the only one that's worked for me. Thank you!!!!

[Chad Fisette1709159801]

So how can you find out what removed those entries from the registry to begin with and/or why you would need to change the permissions on the registry keys to get it working again?

[Patrick Karall1709152689]

Same issue here and the solution also helps for me. I think I found the solution:

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235100, which refers to the hotfix https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235399

This fix should solve the issue.

[Chad Fisette1709159801]

5 hours ago, Patrick Karall1709152689 said:

Same issue here and the solution also helps for me. I think I found the solution:

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235100, which refers to the hotfix https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235399

This fix should solve the issue.

Thanks!  We thought is was a MS issue but they pointed us to the article you sent and also this one:

(Start Menu Stops Responding)…there is a GPO change required:

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX224835?_ga=2.252333385.1949927658.1526906916-1623810517.1453054330

[John Bullough1709158040]

I ran into this issue yesterday in my customers XA 7.15 cu2 environment running on Windows Server 2016 VDA's. The machines are provisioned using MCS. When the user(s) log on to a published desktop their Start Menu would be fine then all of a sudden would not open when clicked. Right clicking the start menu still works.

 

After a bit of troubleshooting I found:

 

When a user reports the issue, child keys of the AppXAllUserStore registry key (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppX\AppxAllUserStore) are corrupt/deleted. If you restart the server (MCS/PVS) the keys come back and the startmenu works.... until a user logs off and then they go again and the start menu stops working again.

 

after a bit more digging I found that the setting to "Delete Cached Copies of Profiles at logoff" was not allowing the user profiles to unload in time. This results in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppX\AppxAllUserStore being corrupted/deleted, this in turn breaks the Start Menu.

Fix

In order to fix the issue we have implemented a 30second wait time to allow the user profile to be fully unloaded before the system deletes the local user profile. After implementing this, we logged on and off with several users 10+ times each. At no point following the update to the wait time did the Start Menu break.  

 

Hope this helps....

[CarlStalhood]

jbullou597: Did you install this hotfix? https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235399

[John Bullough1709158040]

Carl: I didn't install the hotfix, as the issue referenced in that was a black screen, but looking at the info on the workaround (CTX235100) referenced in the article, it looks like that is caused by  AppX\AppxAllUserStore being deleted as well. 

 

Just to confirm, my customer hasn't experienced the broken start menu since implementing the logoff delay and restarting the VDA's (which restores the AppX\AppxAllUserStore key).

[Lucas Carvalho Francoi]

On 02/07/2018 at 10:18 AM, Hardeep Singh1709156982 said:

I've tried every fix and this is the only one that's worked for me. Thank you!!!!

What did you do? I´ve tried but I received permissions failure when import the key(Not all data was successfully written to the registry (Some keys are open by the system or other processes, or you have insufficient privileges to perform this operation).

[Hardeep Singh1709156982]

I was a local admin the server but I didn't do anything special. Exported AppxAllUserStore from a working server onto the desktop, copied it to the non-working server, and double clicked the exported registry. Restarted the server after and that's it. 

[Lucas Carvalho Francoi]

2 minutes ago, Hardeep Singh1709156982 said:

I was a local admin the server but I didn't do anything special. Exported AppxAllUserStore from a working server onto the desktop, copied it to the non-working server, and double clicked the exported registry. Restarted the server after and that's it. 

I´ve tried with local admin, without success!

[John LeMay1709159567]

Regarding the method of exporting AppxAllUserStore from a working server, I'm assuming that the working and non-working servers should be identical as far as what applications are installed on the machines? I don't expect I can take a machine that doesn't have Office installed for example and import it's keys on a server that has Office and expect my "repaired" Start menu to somehow have all of the correct icons, can I?