start menu button not opening on Windows server 2016 VDA HSD servers.

Are you using Citrix UPM? If so, do you have it set up for 2016 as in this article? https://james-rankin.com/articles/management-of-start-menu-and-tiles-on-windows-10-and-server-2016-part-2/

Improper UPM settings is what normally cause the Start Menu to fail

For Server 2016, the Start Menu has been a PITA since day one. James Rankin says to use FSlogix (included with your RDS CALs) for user profiles and your Start Menu problems should go away.

​Management of Start Menu and Tiles on Windows 10 and Server 2016, part #2​​​

FSLogix Profile Containers

I’ve already mentioned that FSLogix Profile Containers is currently one of my favourite bits of technology. And it wouldn’t be one of my favourite bits of technology if anything was hard 🙂 Suffice to say, using FSLogix Profile Containers in the same default config we shared in the first part of this article (because it grabs the entire profile) means that all of our Start Menu and Start Tiles settings roam without issue. This works on both Windows 10 1803 and Server 2016 – no special configuration required.

We are using UPM.
But we observed that, in normal RDP session also same issue.

1. UPM will still run for RDP sessions on the box as well, unless you are filtering the policy to a specific group.
2. If you are filtering by group and it is affecting users not in the UPM group, then I would suggest something is wrong in your default profile.

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/profile-management/current-release/profile-management-best-practice.html
Configured the policy as per above article. But not sure if it's getting applied.
 Still having the issue

Why use the Citrix article? Use the settings in the article I supplied, those were working fine for me. This won't fix the broken profile, but it should stop it from happening for any other users.

if the problem is just for one user, then you will have to delete the UPM profile. However unless you set it up in the right way it will continue to occur intermittently.

Hi James,
Please find update: After applied your article, still no luck.
Citrix Environment: Citrix XD 7.15 LTSR CU1 -On-Prem
Provisioning technology:  MCS
Hypervisor: VMWARE
VDA 7.1912 LTSR CU1 on  Windows server 2016 HSD. Win 2016 VDA  is manually configured.
I had upgraded only the VDA to 1912 LTSR a few days back.
When I RDP to the VDA server 2016 I'm unable to open Start Menu and also button does not work. Mouse Right click works on Start and Search Icon left mouse click does not work.
I have configured the Citrix profile management policy from the Citrix policy studio provided in the article https://james-rankin.com/articles/management-of-start-menu-and-tiles-on-windows-10-and-server-2016-part-2/
I have assigned the policy to Delivery Group ,my VDA is a higher version 1912 LTSR CU1.
I had upgraded the VDA because of Dual cursor issue.
There is an older version of Citrix UPM v3 which is configured via GPO.its a mix farm landscape.
The policy settings for the Start button issue on server 2016 are done on Citrix studio policy, which is 7.15 LTSR CU1.
I have a feeling the profile management policy configured via studio is perhaps not getting applied.  Is it correct?

Make sure the right version is being used.  -- Could you please elaborate "right version" means?

You mentioned you had an older version of UPM too, just make sure you are using the 1912 version.

https://dennisspan.com/citrix-optimizer-custom-template-windows-server-2016/
We customized our Windows 2016 Master Image with optimizer which I had used above Dennis Span article...
apparently there are some of which seem to have caused the Start button and search button to not open.
So I excluded a bunch of them, After which it is fine now.