Windows 10 Occasional "weird" behaviour with windows search, file downloads, and more

  • Thread starter Thread starter jemand771
  • Start date Start date
J

jemand771

I'm sorry for the vague title, but I didn't know how to describe this in one line. Also, first post, please be gentle :)


I am experiencing some relly weird behaviour on my Laptop ever since we moved and changed out ISP. Sometimes, the start menu search just shows the blue loading dots at the top of the screen but never finishes. I should note that when the search works fine, none of the other problems are present. It feels like there is a "broken state" in which all of the described errors occur together.


  • windows search doesn't find anything (loads forever)
  • some apps/programms wont open (eg steam, microsoft solitaire collection, icue, etc. these seem to be somewhat random, but it's always the same programms that are affected)
  • downloads in any browser (tried chrome, firefox, opera, edge) are stuck at 100% and don't finish. the file is downloaded successfully, but in order to download another file, a restart is required

thiss issue occurs in part on both laptops in this household, both running windows 10 home.

what I have tried (without permanent success):
  • restarting the machine (fixes it temporarily most of the time)
  • running the search troubleshooter -> shows permission errors on search directories, even when searching works as intended
  • rebuilding the search index
  • re-installing cortana
  • sfc /scannow and so on
  • windows in-place upgrade
  • windows memory test
  • memtest86
  • fully re-installed windows on a new ssd

none of these tests (except the search troubleshooter) reported any erros, and none of the fixes worked. all i did after reinstalling windows was installing some essential programs (chrome, discord, steam, spotify, ...) but nothing experimental. - and the issues came back

the problems first started occuring about three weeks ago, shortly after we moved and got a new ISP. That is the only thing I can think of that has changed for both devices, except for Windows Updates of course. I'd like to think that this is some error in windows, but nobody else seems to get this behaviour.

I'd really appreciate if anyone could help me. Because having to reboot my laptop all the time is getting really annoying. Is there some test or troubleshooter I'm missing? Let me know if you need more info on location, program versions, etc.
Thank you in advance!

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