After the latest Windows 10 feature updates on my PC, Brave no longer starts. The updates were “Feature update to Windows 10, version 21H1” and “Feature update to Windows 10, version 21H2”. Before this I used Brave all day every day for years.
What I’m seeing: when I try to start Brave from either my taskbar or desktop icon, there’s a very brief white screen, like a blink, and then the display reverts to whatever it was already showing. Same behavior when I right-click the link in my task bar and select any of the options - New Window, New Private Window, or just Brave.
When I check Task Manager, I sometimes see two update instances running – BraveSoftware Update and BraveSoftware Update (32 bit), and when I keep Task Manager open while right-clicking on the taskbar icon and selecting just “Brave”, I briefly see several (around 5 or 6) instances of “Brave Browser” appear in Task Manager, but then they go away and Brave still doesn’t open.
What I’ve tried: uninstalling the Windows updates, and re-installing Brave, which reaches the end of the process and then nothing happens – no Brave window opens.
Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Edge all run fine.
I also tried using the “Import Browser Data” function in Firefox, and it lists Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge Legacy, and Opera as possible targets, but not Brave.
One seemingly unrelated issue which, however, appeared at the same time; when I try to play anything in Youtube, I’m required to sign in to my Google account before I can proceed. That’s new behavior.
Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated.