After logging in to a website that needed a username and password, the screen just went blank. After a few tries, I resorted to the classical work around of trying the website in another browser. I usually work in Chrome but I also have Thunderbird and Microsoft Edge installed on my machine.
I encountered the same problem with Thunderbird, so I concluded that this was not a browser problem. I contacted technical support for the website. After a long-winded online chat session I did get logged in. But later that day I found that logging in from the browser still failed with the blank screen.
The next step is a Windows reboot. I had ruled this out because everything else on my computer was working normally.
When I clicked the Windows “Shut Down” options, I noticed that there was an entry there for “Update and restart”.
This triggered some memories of unstable behavior in the past when software updates had been installed but were waiting for a final reboot. After I did the Update and restart, my browser could login to the website.
So what is the problem here?
Earlier versions of Windows had an option to ask before doing a software update. But a lot of users were not installing software updates. Their machines were vulnerable to virus and other software attacks because they didn’t have the latest security patches. So Microsoft changed this policy and automatically updates Windows 10 machines.
A good way to see if your machine is in the middle of a software update is to look in the Shut Down menu. If there is the extra entry for “Update and restart” you should do this as soon as possible to avoid some very strange and unpredictable behavior.
