Black Screen After Logging In

Hi everyone,

This summer we re-imaged over 7000 student devices (Asus and Lenovo laptops and PCs). The image used had the latest updates as of June 2024. For some reason (this is mostly on the PCs but also on some of the laptops) sometimes when a user logs in they get a black screen with a cursor. The only "fix" so far is to just restart the machine using ctrl+alt+del. One of the machines I was trying to fix had an error in the event viewer: event ID 7011 timed out waiting for appreadiness. Doing a bit of searching on this didn't reveal much other than trying to kill that appreadiness service (which I couldn't do, it would just error out) or try to launch explorer using task manager (that wouldn't work either). Another test that I did is to disable Fast Startup on some of the affect devices but that didn't seem to help much (the black screen still happened on one of the test devices shortly after deploying the GPO so it's possible the setting didn't take effect right away).

I just checked on a laptop that it was happening to this morning and it has the latest updates from September (Version 10.0.22631.4169). One thing I did notice in the event viewer of this one is it has multiple errors: Event 1511: Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Which is odd because that error still comes up even after the account successfully logs in after a restart. Another odd thing about that error is I've noticed it often comes up when I log in to devices I've used before or not even though everything works fine even when that error shows up in event viewer.

If anyone has any insight or can think of a place to look for certain logs when this happens, I'm all ears (eyes?).

Have you installed KB5043145? If you then try uninstalling it. See following article which mentions Asus laptops: -

I haven't checked yet but as far as I know no one is experiencing BSOD or that green screen they are talking about. It's just a black screen with a cursor after logging in.

It can take awhile for Windows 24H2 to load on some PCs. Be patient.

try this:

boot into safe mode
launch registry editor
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

edit the value of string "Shell" to "Explorer.exe" (without quotes)

reboot to normal

may be in a hiccup/glitch after updates/restart

I would also open a Command Prompt as Admin (right-click on the start button or press Win+X to see the list) and execute
chkdsk c: /f
This scans the disk for errors and repairs them, probably your user profile folder is corrupt. You will see a message that the disk cannot be checked and if you want to schedule it for next Windows restart. Reply Yes and restart to do it.

NormanF said:

It can take awhile for Windows 24H2 to load on some PCs. Be patient.

Click to expand...

We haven't upgraded to 24H2 yet. All the devices are on 23H2.

dacrone said:

try this:

boot into safe mode
launch registry editor
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

edit the value of string "Shell" to "Explorer.exe" (without quotes)

reboot to normal

may be in a hiccup/glitch after updates/restart

Click to expand...

Check on a PC that it was happening to this morning and this key is already set.

spapakons said:

I would also open a Command Prompt as Admin (right-click on the start button or press Win+X to see the list) and execute
chkdsk c: /f
This scans the disk for errors and repairs them, probably your user profile folder is corrupt. You will see a message that the disk cannot be checked and if you want to schedule it for next Windows restart. Reply Yes and restart to do it.

Click to expand...

Going to run this in the next hour or so. I hope this isn't the fix... Having to do that on all of the affected devices would be a nightmare.

so it booted into safe mode just fine then, i assume?

dacrone said:

so it booted into safe mode just fine then, i assume?

Click to expand...

Well the PC was in use (we use Connectwise's Screenconnect client to RDP to devices) but I was able to use a command to check the registry key through command prompt. I connected to it after school was over and tried to sign in as myself but got the black screen. I fired up task manager and launched cmd as admin and ran that check disk and restarted. Can't really see the progress unfortunately but someone will check on it tomorrow morning. Either way, is there a log somewhere that shows what checkdisk did?

you can output it to a log if not, but now i understand. ive used connectwise. so, let me make sure i fully understand (since you said it was in use)

its only your profile that is having the black screen issue? others are able to log on with no issue?

chkdsk C: /f >log.txt will save all output to file log.txt

Did you do any Folder Redirection in the GPO? I don't own a domain, but I remember that can cause the profile error.

spapakons said:

chkdsk C: /f >log.txt will save all output to file log.txt

Click to expand...

Unfortunately for some reason that would just hang up not doing anything. If I remove the >log.txt it works fine.

dacrone said:

you can output it to a log if not, but now i understand. ive used connectwise. so, let me make sure i fully understand (since you said it was in use)

its only your profile that is having the black screen issue? others are able to log on with no issue?

Click to expand...

Not only my profile, we got a call yesterday morning that said the computer black screened (they only use one profile on that machine) and when I connected to it later that afternoon, it was logged in so clearly the restart fixed the issue temporarily. It was when I logged with my profile (which I never logged into that machine before) is when it gave me the black screen.

garlin said:

Did you do any Folder Redirection in the GPO? I don't own a domain, but I remember that can cause the profile error.

Click to expand...

No, we don't. We have some network shares but that's it.

I guess the syntax is a little different from what I remember from DOS days. You probably must run chkdsk locally.

when it is hung on a black screen, can you still access it via cmd from connectwise? if so we can try a few more commands

dacrone said:

when it is hung on a black screen, can you still access it via cmd from connect wise? if so we can try a few more commands

Click to expand...

I have this issue on my pc to, latest 24h2, the only thing that fixes it is to sign out and sign in, i have cursor, but task manager wont show when i ctrl+sift+esc, if try to alt+tab it shows in appdrawer for a tiny second.
What commands is this.
I have made an inplace upgrade and was keeping files, that was because win store and uwp apps, and start menu wouldn't load.
It behaves the same way when connecting via team viewer from tablet.

not sure you can with teamviewer, but in your case, reboot into safe mode and under device manager set your graphics to Microsoft Basic and boot back to normal. lets narrow down the cause for that

I had the black screen with cursor (blinking white -) on each boot after an update to 24H2

Turned out I had to go into the BIOS and reset defaults.

I still have no idea why I had to do this, but the issue stopped

Probably incompatible graphics drivers. Reboot to Safe Mod and either delete (uninstall l) the display adapter or manually change it to Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. This will give you picture and then you can update your graphics drivers.

dacrone said:

not sure you can with teamviewer, but in your case, reboot into safe mode and under device manager set your graphics to Microsoft Basic and boot back to normal. lets narrow down the cause for that

Click to expand...

I'm all for this but this doesn't really make sense. This is happening on multiple different devices (laptops and PCs of different manufacturers) so they all have different graphics drivers.