I was trying to get Dorico SE to work on one of my computers. I have Dorico 6.2 and HALion 7.1.51 Arm64EC installed. When Dorico is started, I get a pop-up window saying:
An essential component used by Dorico for playback has not been found.
HALion Sonic 7 - Instrument
I have:
Reinstalled HALion Sonic 7 and rebooted multiple times, either through Steinberg Download Assistant or manual install
Clear and Reset Audio Engine Data under Preference
Removed all the files under “%appdata%\Steinberg\Dorico 6 AudioEngine_64\Dorico 6 AudioEngine VST3 Cache” and restarted Dorico
Not sure if it is related, when I open HALion Sonic 7 (or HALion 7), the ASIO Driver drop list under Plug-in Preferences shows only No Driver. But under Dorico, I could see the Steinberg built-in ASIO Driver and the Generic Low Latency Driver. Then I installed ASIO4ALL, and it shows up on Dorico, but still No Driver on HALion. I can see all the VSTs I have under HALion.
Unless one has paid for a license for HALion 7, one must use HALion Sonic instead; but if one has told Dorico to use the “best option,” the program will try to use HALion 7, even if one does not have a license for it. Therefore, it is better not to ask for “best option” but to specify HALion Sonic as the version to use. One can find this option in the Edit > Preferences menu if such is available in Dorico SE.
If you’re running a Windows on ARM (WOA) system, you need to install the x86 version of HALion Sonic, not the ARM version: Dorico itself is only available in x86 flavour at the moment, and it can only load VST plug-ins of the same architecture.
On Steinberg Download Assistant, I switched OS to Windows 64, and downloaded HALion Sonic 7.1.51.
The installer has detected that your system does not meet the minimum requirements to install Steinberg HALion Sonic 7…. This installation package is not supported by this processor type. Contact your product vendor.
Then I found that I still had the Win64 HALion Sonic 7.1.0 installation package on my HD. I installed it successfully and the standalone ran fine and I was able to select the Steinberg built-in ASIO driver. Dorico SE also runs fine now.
This computer has a SnapDragon X Plus. It is a little strange to me that the old Win64 7.1.0 installs fine but the newer 7.1.51 does not.
Could you please confirm something? Your screenshot shows an error box on a Windows machine, but the diagnostics you’ve posted come from an Apple iMac. So you have both, a Mac and a Windows machine, right? Then please post a diagnostics report from your Win machine. Thanks
For reasons I don’t know, HALion Sonic landed on the blocklist with you and therefore it won’t get loaded anymore. But this is a hick-up which happens quite often to people. In the majority of cases it is enough to clear the audio engine cache.
In order to do so, please go to the Dorico Preferences dialog, select the VST PLug-ins tab and on the right side you will see the Clear Audio Engine Cache button , click on that and restart Dorico.
As I said, in the majority of cases this simple recipe is sufficient. If not in your case, then pelase send me a new diagnostic report. Thanks
