Windows 11 Recall finally arrives, but with one new problem

By Fionna Agomuoh Published November 29, 2024

The Windows 11 Recall feature has been troublesome since its announcement. Now that the feature is available in a testing capacity, it is still causing users some issues.

Tech reviewers testing the feature have observed that Recall will now fail to save the snapshots that allow the function to work. CNBC noted that it may take “several minutes” for a snapshot to save, which may leave delays in the AI processing. Tom Warren of The Verge, noted on Bluesky that snapshots were not saving at all in his experience.

anyone else having issues with Recall? I can't get it to save snapshots at all

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren.co.uk) 2024-11-25T02:08:27.321Z

In response to the recent laments, Microsoft recommended the cure-all computer restart method to tackle the issue.

The brand sent out an advisory notice to the Dev channel of its Windows Insiders program, which are the main users currently previewing the Recall feature. Otherwise, Microsoft doesn’t seem to have any other fix for the feature at this time.

“Some users experience a delay before snapshots first appear in the timeline while using their device. If snapshots do not appear after 5 minutes, reboot your device. If saving snapshots is enabled, but you see snapshots are no longer being saved, reboot your device, ” Microsoft said in a blog post.

That’s right — the solution for now is the tried and true Windows fix of turning your computer off and on again.

Recall was originally intended for a preview release in June, and is currently only rolling out to Windows 11 update beta testers on Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X chips.

The claim of the feature is to give your PC “photographic memory,” allowing you to use natural language to explore any moment in your PC’s timeline. In addition to being helpful for search, it can also allow you to restore entire function points on your AI PC so you can start up where you left off in the case of a system crash or shut down when you’re finished with your day without fear of losing your content.

It works by capturing and saving snapshots of your activity throughout the day. This was previously considered a security and privacy concern, which led to the feature being retracted and then repeatedly delayed. Now its second attempt at a release remains marred with issues.

While Recall’s implementation is unique, other companies such as Google quickly made plans to design similar AI features. For example, the ChromeOS 130 update included a feature called Welcome Recap that allows you to remember multiple previous desktop states and select between them or allows you to start fresh with a new desktop.