A simple fix for when Microsoft Teams (Windows 10 Client) goes wonky

WHAT

My Microsoft Teams client on Windows 10 looked like this last night.

I rebooted, applied updates, cleared browser cache, crashed the app. Nothing I did would fix it. I went to bed thinking maybe something was down and it would be fine in the morning.

Nope. Woke up today and no change. I then started trying different networks (maybe a firewall issue, CDN problem). Nope, not that either. I went back to the previous attempts – one more crash of the app, one more reboot. Nope.

SO WHAT

I asked for help. I asked ‘out loud’ in Teams at the Regroove office and low and behold (the power of working together and sharing information out loud is just so powerful) Matt had the solution as he had experienced the same thing earlier.

NOW WHAT

So there you have it. Logging out of Microsoft Teams and logging back in is the trick. This made little sense to me personally so I never tried it. I would think crashing an app should result in it wanting to have a fresh start when it opens (historically this is how things work – “have you tried turning it off and back on again?”). I’m guessing some of the items it was trying to “draw” had “expired” – but rather than giving the traditional error/dead image, it just leaves dead space and a very unpleasant experience.

So there you have it Internet. I hope this helps someone. When in doubt in Microsoft Teams, log out and log back in.