Solved Windows Spotlight stopped working, anyone else?

Yesterday when I booted up my PC, my desktop background had been reset to the default "Windows Bloom" one despite the fact that I use Spotlight. I tried clicking on the "Learn about this picture" desktop icon, but everything was greyed out and it just said "Windows Bloom". I tried changing between "Picture" and "Spotlight" with no change as well as rebooting twice... And now that icon is completely gone. But the lock screen works and still gets new ones?

I've tried searching around online, and I've seen a few threads within the past few weeks where this is happening to others. Is this a problem on Microsoft's end that affects everyone or is it something else? I updated Windows last week, but Spotlight worked fine up until yesterday. I haven't tried these steps yet in case this is something on Microsoft's end.

This issue has happened frequently for other users recently. Things to try.


@OAT suggestion in this thread. Windows Spotlight lock screen image not changing

the solution this user used. Backup the registry key first. Windows Lockscreen and Background won't stay on Spotlight

glasskuter said:

This issue has happened frequently for other users recently. Things to try.

Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to reset and re-register Windows Spotlight for your account in Windows 11. In Windows 11, you can have Windows Spotlight as a theme and display different background images on your desktop and lock screen, and occasionally offers suggestions on the lock screen...

www.elevenforum.com

@OAT suggestion in this thread. Windows Spotlight lock screen image not changing

the solution this user used. Backup the registry key first. Windows Lockscreen and Background won't stay on Spotlight

Click to expand...

I'll do that if it doesn't start syncing on its own after a few days. Although I haven't seen anyone in the recent threads report back success with re-registering it. I'm starting to wonder if this is an issue with 22621.2215? But it seems so strange that mine worked just fine despite being on this version for almost a week...

I can also mention that after it not working on the 2nd reboot, I ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and sfc /scannow, both reported no corrupt files.

Yeah, this issue happens to me sporadically, but it normally would resolve itself in a few days. The last one didn't, and I tried the powershell script. Once it is applied, it didn't seem to work on the lock screen, but fixed the home screen. I did try to click on the camera icon (based on other info that it would let you rotate to the next image manually), but ended up giving the picture dislike (which rotated the image one time), and like (which never did anything).

Now's it's back to automatic rotation again, even though I have no idea if whatever I did mattered or not.

It's a beautiful but unreliable functionality. Doesn't reflect well on MS/W11. Hey, on my Chinese phone, I can't disable this functionality which always works (except disabling it).

Chime33 said:

Yesterday when I booted up my PC, my desktop background had been reset to the default "Windows Bloom" one despite the fact that I use Spotlight. I tried clicking on the "Learn about this picture" desktop icon, but everything was greyed out and it just said "Windows Bloom". I tried changing between "Picture" and "Spotlight" with no change as well as rebooting twice... And now that icon is completely gone. But the lock screen works and still gets new ones?

I've tried searching around online, and I've seen a few threads within the past few weeks where this is happening to others. Is this a problem on Microsoft's end that affects everyone or is it something else? I updated Windows last week, but Spotlight worked fine up until yesterday. I haven't tried these steps yet in case this is something on Microsoft's end.

Click to expand...

The problem started on Aug 31, 2023 on 2 machines at build 22621.2215, still not fixed 3 days later on Sept 2, it has been reported in many different places around different countries. No response from MS yet.
The weird thing is that I have 2 more machines with the same build 22621.2215 and those are still working fine.
The ones failing are the newest machines I have. Perhaps they connect to different MS serves that are having the problem currently.
The Lock Screen spotlight still works correctly, but not the background pictures which reverted to the Windows 11 Bloom.
The options are grayed out and the icon may disappear completely when changing the settings from Spotlight to Picture (or any other option) and back to Windows spotlight.
We'll see how long MS will take to fix this.

Consider using the Dynamic Theme app if Spotlight gives problems has has happened to me for no particular reason

Steve C said:

Consider using the Dynamic Theme app if Spotlight gives problems has has happened to me for no particular reason

Click to expand...

There are too many users complaining that it stopped working on Aug 31, it cannot be a coincidence, MS is screwing up with this.
All give the exact same symptoms that started at the same time.

Exact the same start also the 31/08/2023 waiting for a solution
ps re register spotlight didn't help

Here as well, starting august 31. Tried every solution I found on the Internet, nothing worked, infuriating. Exactly as described, even the icon missing.
I installed the dynamic theme, and when I go back in history in Spotlight images, eventually I end up with a message saying I have no Internet connection, even though everything else is working fine.
Weird thing though, I googled "windows 11 change desktop background", landed on this MS support page, Change your desktop background image - Microsoft Support

No more mentioning of windows-spotlight.....
Like they stopped this functionality.

I was following this topic coz I had the same problem but a few moments ago mine started working properly again

Spotlight is working again
lesson for me if something is not working shutdown the pc for a week don't look at the problem

It started working here again as well. They found the start-button...

BTW, the icon on the desktop has changed.

Rix643 said:

It started working here again as well. They found the start-button...

BTW, the icon on the desktop has changed.

Click to expand...

Started working here too on Sept 4, the icons look the same as I left it from before.

I don't know when it started, definitely recently, but it has not started working for me even now. I still get the same old pic as lockscreen background.
any other tips or resolves?

@TasJam, have you tried the "sfc /scannow" and Reset and Re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 11 Tutorial mentioned above?

TasJam said:

I don't know when it started, definitely recently, but it has not started working for me even now. I still get the same old pic as lockscreen background.
any other tips or resolves?

Click to expand...

We had the problem for 3 days on several computers, but then they started working again as I show on previous post.

One way that always worked when we had troubles with Spotlight was:
1) Change the settings form spotlight to picture on both Background and Lock Screen.
2) Deleting the contents of this folder: (where username should be the name of the windows user)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings

3) Deleting the contents of this other folder that contains all the pictures:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets


4) Reboot
5) Change the settings back to Spotlight for both the Lock Screen and the Background pictures.
Usually, it repopulates the pictures in a few minutes (sometimes it may take longer) when connected to the internet and while checking for Windows Updates and/or MS Store updates.

+1 for me for Spotlight (I don’t use the Spotlight desktop option) not changing. I’ve run both Win 10 & 11 spotlight fixes by Brink & they don’t work in this case. I’ve noticed that I’m asked to ‘Like/dislike’ a couple of times on the same picture as though the background is changing but to the same photo.
Several MS community users have reported the same so I suspect a bug which isn’t affecting everyone.
I wonder if those affected are running Windows 11 on unsupported devices.

Bastet said:

+1 for me for Spotlight (I don’t use the Spotlight desktop option) not changing. I’ve run both Win 10 & 11 spotlight fixes by Brink & they don’t work in this case. I’ve noticed that I’m asked to ‘Like/dislike’ a couple of times on the same picture as though the background is changing but to the same photo.
Several MS community users have reported the same so I suspect a bug which isn’t affecting everyone.
I wonder if those affected are running Windows 11 on unsupported devices.

Click to expand...

Nothing to do with unsupported devices.
I have both supported and unsupported devices and spotlight runs fine on either one. Both for Lock screen and Background pictures.
I have seen machines that stopped downloading new pictures because the metered connection was turned on by mistake.

Good to know @fg2001gf11F.
I’ll check for the metered connection setting just in case.

Apologies for the late reply, but they started working for me again as well the other day! I was a bit inpatient after booting up after a week so I changed between Picture/Spotlight, and after a few minutes I was back on one that I had previously liked! And it's changed again since, so I'll consider this as solved.

Still very strange, but I guess it must've been some sort of server-side error then? Maybe it sent images that weren't being accepted by certain Windows versions for whatever reason.