Dorico does not start [no splash screen]

Hi,

I have used Dorico at least every other day in the last month without any problem, but starting two days ago the application does not start at all. Neither the typical splash screen nor an error message is shown. Also, I cannot find any associated process in the task manager.

Yesterday I used the installer to reinstall Dorico. Initially this helped, but today I face the same problem again.

The logs contain only a few entries:
2021-03-24 12:01:22.250 : Dorico 3.5.12 build 1066 (Feb 15 2021)
2021-03-24 12:01:22.251 : Initializing Printer Services
2021-03-24 12:01:22.257 : Initializing Core Services
2021-03-24 12:01:22.266 : Initializing Cached File Provider

Thanks in advance!

What operating system and version does your computer use?
A recent Windows update can throw a wrench in things, but restarting the computer and then running the License Control Center (Maintenance) as Administrator usually solves the problem.

Running the eLicenser as administrator fixed the problem. I tried that too, but I forgot to start it with administrator rights.

Thank you!

1 Like

Hello again,

unfortunately, the issue recurred several times. Repeating the steps from above using the eLicensor only fixes the issue temporally. I did check if any windows update might have caused the issue, but there was no correlation: Dorico did function perfectly fine after the last automatic windows update.

I am using the latest version of windows 10.

Do you have the license on the Soft-eLicenser or on a USB-eLicenser?
If USB, what type of device do you have? (see picture)
DongleTypen

I am using the software eLicensor.

Quote from Daniel from another thread:
" Make sure you’re using the latest version of Dorico (version 3.5.12), and perhaps counter-intuitively, on some Windows machines you might find that the previous version of eLicenser Control Center works more reliably than the latest one. You could try the version that you will find under Alternative versions for support purposes on this page to see if it helps."

I have been using Dorico 3.5.12 since its release. Also the issue did not coincide with any update of Dorico or other Steinberg software (except maybe some automatic update in the background that I am not aware of).

I have downloaded the previous version of the eLicensor and will give it a try.

I have run the previous version of the eLicensor with admin rights and restarted the computer. Dorico still does not work.

The next time it happens, please do the following:

  1. (Prerequisite) install Process Explorer [Process Explorer - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs ]
  2. When Dorico is stuck, find the Dorico process in Process Explorer, highligh it.
  3. Do a right click and choose Create Mini Dump.
    The mini dump is enough. A full dump would generate too much information. Please post the generated dump file here. Thanks

Thank you for your guide. I installed the program and executed Dorico. However, I could not create a dump as the process terminated to quickly (less than 3 sec).

I noticed that under “Dorico 3.5.exe” two sub-processes were listed: “Dorico 3.5.exe” and “WerFault.exe” from Microsoft Corporation. Can you make sense of it?

In that case please have a look at C:\Users<yourname>\Documents\Steinberg\CrashDumps.
There should be some *.dmp files; please zip them up and post here. Thanks

Sorry, I can not locate a Steinberg folder in my Documents.

However, running a system wide search for .dmp files I found a few named Dorico3.5.exe in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\CrashDumps. I will post the most recent file archived as zip.

This looks to be a problem with one of the libraries that Dorico uses. Could you see if the directory C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess exists? If so, try deleting it and starting Dorico again.

The directory exists and contains a single file “CachedFileDataProviderManager”. Deleting it (the folder) did not help.

Hmm, this is a problem we’ve never had reported before. There’s a couple of things to try before getting more diagnostics:

  • reboot (just to ensure any locked files are released)
  • in the Explorer type %APPDATA% and find the Steinberg/Dorico 3.5 subdirectory
  • rename Dorico 3.5 (so that if you have any saved preferences those can be restored later)
  • in Explorer type %TEMP% and find the Dorico 3.5 directory. Delete it
  • run Dorico again

Following all your steps Dorico starts again! Even after restoring my preferences. I will keep you posted if it stays that way after a few days of usage. Thank you for your time and help!

That’s great to hear - I think there must have been a problem with the cache file that was in the %TEMP% directory, and wiping that allows it to be regenerated correctly.