Computer Related > Microsoft Store & Photos Legal Questions
Thread Author: No FM2R Replies: 26

 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
..have both stopped working on my PC.

Everything was fine until a few days ago.

Try to open the Store and it opens for literally 2 seconds and closes again. No error messages.

Try to open Photos and it does the same.

Try to open Photos by double clicking on a JPG (or any other image file) and it says file not found. JPGs and other image files open just fine with anything other than "Photos"

Photos, Video Editor and Microsoft store all have a thick white line under them in the Start Menu

As far as I can tell everything except those two are working just fine. (Vid. Ed & Photos are actually the same program I think)

I have tried [most more than once];
- Troubleshooter
- Store Reset from app menu
- Store & Photos uninstall and install
- DISM
- SFC
- WSReset [fails with "cannot find 'ms-windows-store:PurgeCaches']
- Have changed and changed back Apps folder ownership and access settings
- Created new accounts (with MS address and without)
- Have run the normally brilliant "Tweaking.com - Windows Repair"
- Have even done a full repair install
- checked and rolled back, and then later reinstalled Windows Updates.

I have scoured Google and tried every suggestion I could find.

I have nothing left except wipe the disk and do a full clean install, which I really, really don't want to do.

It's a long shot, but anybody got any other thoughts?
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
I think it broke 3 or 4 days ago.

I notice that in "Apps & Features" the Microsoft Store is shown as 16kb.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - Zero
I had an update a few days ago that updated MS photos to a new product i think
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
Did you? I didn't notice that. I'll check. Thank you.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - Zero
Just checked it was the photos engine add on that got installed.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - Crankcase
WSReset [fails with "cannot find 'ms-windows-store:PurgeCaches']

Almost matches the possible error shown here, where it also describes what to do in an elevated PowerShell to fix that problem:

www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-store-not-opening

Just in case that's useful.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 25 Feb 20 at 17:41
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
I appreciate you looking CC, but I've tried that approach. it results in;

Add-AppxPackage : Cannot find path 'C:WINDOWSWinStoreAppxManifest.xml' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register C:WINDOWSWinStore ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:WINDOWSWinStoreAppxManifest.xml:String) [Add-AppxPackage], ItemNot
FoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.AddAppxPac
kageCommand



It's clearly relevant to the problem, but I cannot make a link. The directory does not exist, it probably should exit, but I cannot cause it to exist. Manually creating it does not work.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
I think it's related to access to the windowsapps directory.

I can get to it via the Shell, but not through Windows Explorer.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - tyrednemotional
...maybe not relevant, but update KB4532693 has been causing a lot of problems in the last (just over a) week.

I can't find any direct reference to your problems, but it has seemingly been responsible for "randomly" deleting files, profiles, etc.

It hit my machine 10 days ago, and I've escaped any (noticeable) effects, but you might just want to research it a little.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>> I think it's related to access to the windowsapps directory.

And something to do with install$location.

I think it's probably beaten me.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>I think it's probably beaten me.

Well it certainly has now.

I bit the bullet and did a full wipe & install. Restored my data files and a bunch of pretty standard apps. I used no existing install files, everything was downloaded from the appropriate source, I have no hacked or bootleg software on the PC.

It's been working just fine, Microsoft Store, Photos and everything else for about three weeks.

And yet just now, within the last hour, it's happened again. Exactly the same.

I have not installed, uninstalled or reconfigured anything in at least a week.

I simply have no idea where to start.

Any clues at all?
 Microsoft Store & Photos - smokie
I can't see you've mentioned trying it in Safe Mode, but that's unlikely I think.

There may have been a Windows update which broke it, do you allow Windows to update itself?

Also for a short time I had a program which tried updating software and drivers because it thought them out of date. It was something which came bundled with something else, though it was pretty obvious when it ran.

This geezer has detailed a potential fix, though maybe it's one you've tried.

answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_store/apps-greyed-out-and-underlined-in-windows-10-start/6de03fee-ae4f-44b6-90f3-acf1e60eb0a8

but that's not something you want to be doing too often, so it'd be good to get to the bottom of why.

Another approach here www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3175-reinstall-re-register-apps-windows-10-a.html, I think you'd want to look at Option 2 - again, a fix not a cause.

And one more, older, suggestion

vanbrenk.blogspot.com/2017/02/windows-10-store-not-opening.html solution 2 I think.



But then you may have already tried these...
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>But then you may have already tried these...

Thank you. I went through them all and I have tried them all, thanks for the effort though.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - Zero
Check your MS update history, see what happened, gotta be something in that.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
I've tried rolling back the updates but that hasn't helped.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - Zero
Ok

You can roll back fixes, but that often won't fix the existing damage its caused

If you really want to resolve this, its back to basics, reinstall windows and this time disable auto updates by one of the various means (policy editing, dicking with the registry etc) and then research each fx as it comes along before applying.

Long winded, I know. you may not BA unless its really bugging you.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - smokie
Yep that's a good point, I provided some links to supposedly fix the underlined items in Start menu but while they may bring back the functionality the underlying data is likely broken (cf your comment about the reported size of your Microsoft store and also the missing folder).

If you go down the re-install route you could try copying the missing folder once complete then you can maybe just put it back if it disappears again, which may avoid the need to re-install yet again.

And/or take an image of the machine when it's working, which is faster to re-apply than re-installing. Also if you use Macrium Reflect you can mount a backed up image as a virtual drive and inspect, compare and copy stuff from it. (For me it's very quick - about 15 mins or less to backup and verify, but then my (SSD) C drive is pretty much only Windows and programs, about 70Gb, so I image my C drive every week just in case of issues like yours. I keep a couple of back copies too, like from after a major upgrade or re-install, as my own restore points - and I don't use Microsoft restore points).
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>And/or take an image of the machine when it's working, which is faster to re-apply than re-installing.

Yes, you'd imagine that I would have the intelligence and forethought to do that, wouldn't you, especially as I have only 80Gb used on an SSD drive.

Sadly......

I always do a good job of keeping copies of all my data though, which is some consolation. None of that can get lost.

Though I'm going to do an image backup right now and then that'll leave me free to do some major interfering and screwing around at least knowing it can't get worse than this.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>Long winded, I know. you may not BA unless its really bugging you.

This time all the updates and been done well past the last time it broke. So to me it seems unlikely that an update could break it once and then work fine, and then do the same again at a later date. At least without causing some kerfuffle on the internet.

It means I have no Microsoft programs working other than Windows itself. Even Calculator doesn't work. Essentially all those programs that come with Windows do the same thing; start up a blank window of the appropriate size with the correct title and then literally 2 or 3 seconds later disappear again leaving no error behind them.

I tried so many different things last time including a reinstall but keep stuff and nothing fixed it. I did a full restore over the existing installation and that didn't work.

Only cleaning the disk and reinstalling resolved the issue. But it's such a pain in the a***. I won't lose anything, I have all the installation programs and data copies, but even in lock-down I have things I'd rather do.

Whilst I have no idea what could be breaking it, I am beginning to suspect that it is a problem in the registry.

Whatever I do to the files, directories, access, register, re-register, repair, reset, rebuild etc. etc. nothing works.

But even a system repair or a system reinstall keep the existing registry. They check that stuff is there relevant to the system itself, but that's it. And i don't have a problem with the system itself, it is the additional applications.

Now what I do with that thought is another matter. It's not like you can copy a good registry from somewhere else. Though now I think about it, System Restore points do replace the registry. that might be worth a fiddle except that I don;t really use restore points. Perhaps i should.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - tyrednemotional
Mark,

if you can get to it, have a look in the event viewer to try to ascertain whether something is failing.

The reason I suggest it is that I've had a very similar problem on a couple of machines, which I think in my case was caused by the installation of a couple of oldish 3rd-party programs.

I identified a failing module, but never did find the absolute root cause (carefully installing the offending programs in a different order after a full re-image seemed to finally resolve it).

Other people have reported similar symptoms, with the same failing module, with different potential causes, and absolute nightmares trying to resolve. At the time there were no Microsoft recommended remedies.

The failing module was (from my memory) "Edgehtml.dll" which, as might be gathered, is part of the HTML renderer for the Edge browser. The issue is that an awful lot of the other Microsoft function is rendered by this, not just Edge. In addition, a lot of 3rd party stuff takes the same path.

So, you invoke a function from the start menu, it appears to initialise, and then just crashes. Virtually nothing is invokable. I must have managed somehow to get into event viewer, because the evidence was there, but I can't remember how easy it was.

(I have to say that I doubt "new" Edge, released pretty recently, uses the same rendering engine, but I doubt that the core Windows function will have moved away from it)
Last edited by: tyrednemotional on Sun 19 Apr 20 at 17:12
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
I don't do very well with the Event Log, I don;t really understand what I am looking at.

However, in the hope that you do;

I tried to start 'Calculator' and it generated this....

Unable to start a DCOM Server: Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_10.1910.0.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe!App.AppXc11
dqpdjvk55gd6z0w7qmyvrsxymf1tk.mca
as Unavailable/Unavailable. The error:
"2147942402"
Happened while starting this command:
"C:Program FilesWindowsAppsMicrosoft.WindowsCalculator_10.1910.0.0_x64__8wekyb3
d8bbweCalculator.exe"
-ServerName:App.AppXsm3pg4n7er43kdh1qp4e79f1j7am68r8.mca

I tried to start 'Store' and it generated this....


Unable to start a DCOM Server: Microsoft.WindowsStore_12004.1001.1.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe!App as Unavailable/Unavailable. The error:
"2147942402"
Happened while starting this command:
"C:Program FilesWindowsAppsMicrosoft.WindowsStore_12004.1001.1.0_x64__8wekyb3d8
bbweWinStore.App.exe"
-ServerName:App.AppXc75wvwned5vhz4xyxxecvgdjhdkgsdza.mca


Now, I understand that "2147942402" is a File not Found error. What file, though, I have no idea.

It also sometimes generates this;

0x3D55: Package family MICROSOFT.WINDOWSSTORE_8WEKYB3D8BBWE runtime information is corrupted. Attempting to correct the issue.

0x80070057: Package family Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe runtime information is corrupted but we cannot repair it at this time.


However, the resolutions I can find for that on the web, essentially re-registering, does not help.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - tyrednemotional
That certainly doesn't look like the edgehtml.dll issue I had, though the symptoms of failure are very similar. It was just a thought.

Searching on your DCOM error pulls up quite a few hits. This one looks quite interesting (though it actually contains no reference to that error).

support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2798317/microsoft-store-apps-fail-to-start-if-default-registry-or-file-permiss

Given the description it might just be worth looking in the Event Viewer at the logs for the details outlined in Issue 1 and Issue 2. (that for Issue 2 is "Windows Logs" then "Applications". The path for the Issue 1 event is as the link documents).

I suspect it will be of little help, but who knows.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - tyrednemotional
I've also seen at least two references to cleaning up Microsoft Accounts as fixing the issue.

This describes something very similar to your issue (same error code) - none of the prescribed actions worked,

answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-store-does-not-open/95fc55f7-aa9e-4be5-aaa6-929b6f8115a2?page=3

BUT

The last post on page 3 describes an issue that was on another post somewhere, with a conflict in User Accounts being resolved before the thing worked again.

Might be worth looking whether you've got several accounts.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>The last post on page 3 describes an issue that was on another post somewhere, with a conflict in User Accounts being resolved before the thing worked again.

Hmmm, I'll have a dig into that, because I do have more than one account on this computer.


Thank you, I really do appreciate you putting the effort into helping.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>The last post on page 3 describes an issue that was on another post somewhere, with a conflict in User Accounts being resolved before the thing worked again.

Hmm, I resolved it, but that doesn't mean I know what caused it or why.

I have two accounts on this computer; A local account and another tied to my Outlook account.

99.9% of the time I use the local account and leave it logged in. If I have anything confidential or important to do I use the Outlook account.

It occurred to me that before I had the problems last time I had just started using Office 365 on an web account for a business favour I was doing.

So, I started by using System Restore to go back quickly to before I had added my Outlook account and started the Office 365 stuff, and all started working properly.

There were two Restore Points close together where the only change was at the time I was adding the accounts so I was pretty sure that it wasn't getting fixed because anything else was getting reversed out.

I then re-added the Outlook account and it remained fine.

I then re-accessed the business Office 365 account for which I downloaded Excel on to the PC and use the other applications remotely.

As soon as I did that it all went wrong again, though Office 365 worked just fine.

For some reason it appears to a conflict between having an Outlook account on the PC as an actual account and then using a different Outlook account to access Office 365.

This time, rather than restore, I just uninstalled the Office 365 software and disconnected the Office 365 account and it all started working.

I'm not clear about the relationship between the PC and the Office 365 account.

It can be found under "Accounts used by other Apps" and under "Access work or school" in user settings.

It's not clear what value it has there, but one option presented is "Disconnect". And that's what did the trick

My own Outlook account remains there, the local account works fine, and so that's good enough.

It broke the Store, which uses as Outlook account *IF* one is available and clearly got a headache. I have no idea why, nor do I care much. I can avoid it easily enough.

So thanks, that pointer to conflicting accounts got me there.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 20 Apr 20 at 17:55
 Microsoft Store & Photos - tyrednemotional
>>
>> So thanks, that pointer to conflicting accounts got me there.
>>

Result then.

I must admit that without trying to reproduce it myself, I've no idea what is going on, but (without very much detail) I found maybe 3 or 4 references to playing with the accounts potentially fixing it.
 Microsoft Store & Photos - No FM2R
>>support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2798317/microsoft-store-apps-fail-t
o-start-if-default-registry-or-file-permiss


I had high hopes for that, mostly because i hadn't tried it before, but regrettably everything was how it should be.

I got nothing additional from trawling the Event Viewer.
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