I am seeing repeated (within 24 hours) issues where the Taskbar and Desktop are lost. Open windows/applications remain visible provided you don't minimize them. I see data and work within those windows/applications but am unable to access any desktop or taskbar icons. The desktop is all black and taskbar is gone. I am able to access folders and drives via the open window/applications (File > Save As) and in some cases I can browse using this method and access executables.
It appears this issue is related to explorer.exe/SearchUI.exe and/or svchost.exe. These processes are showing in Wait Chain.
When I log in as another user I can restart all applications associated with the affected user except explorer.exe. Says I dont have permission. I am performing this as Admin. Further investigation shows the explorer.exe application is not even running but it shows running in Task Manager.
When I attempt to log out ANY user during this event I receive a message 'Please Wait for System Event Notification Service. This will prevent logoff indefinitely until I log in as local Admin and kill the svchost.exe for affected user associated with Wait Chain for winlogon.exe.
A reboot of machine resolves issue for ~1day. It is sometimes possible to access the explore.exe from affected user using above (File > Save As) and starting that to restore desktop and taskbar however the explore.exe previous task still shows as running and cannot be restarted or stopped.
I am using Windows Server 2016. This happens on 3 different machines (2 VMs and one Tower).