Are you on a crusade here?
I’ve put this thread into “slow mode” for a couple of days to cool it down.
@am74, you’ve made your feelings about Dorico well-known over the past couple of weeks. You’ve also refused my offers of assistance. You’re not adding anything to the conversation here, so I ask you to please refrain from trolling.
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No, this ismy first post in this thread. Normally I’m trying to help out people, and typically get positive vibes from this forum.
I‘m just wondering about the energy …
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I"m very happy to advertise MuseScore.
It’s not fit for professional work of the type that I do. Just off the top of my head, it can’t print dynamic changes within a single note in a reliable way.
This f needs to go exactly half way through the bar, and reliably show up in the same place in the part, or it’s going to slow me down compared to any of the big three paid programs:
I don’t really see what the link is between trying to help people and whether or not they purchase a license. The vast majority of posters here have no knowledge of whether somebody’s bought Dorico or not; on the whole we’re aiming to help anybody who posts here.
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Here is an another example of what’s happening here, like a crusade on your part.
When it is about other programs your reasonings are precise and logical, while when you all talk about Dorico it seems you defend the application at any cost, even perverting basic logic, and common sense about current computer applications standard of functioning.
I’ve also taken the liberty of renaming the thread, to make it clearer about what specific aspect of Dorico is at issue here.
I hope it is obvious that we take the problems users experience with the initialisation of the audio engine, and hence with the initialisation of Dorico, very seriously. It is definitely the case that we (and especially Ulf) are spending more hours working on these issues than is ideal, and of course even more importantly, we know that it has a negative impact on the enjoyment and utility of Dorico for those customers who run into this problem with regularity.
@mducharme is quite right about most of the things that he has written in this thread about why and how Dorico and its audio engine are separate applications. There are trade-offs, to be sure, for having the audio engine in a separate process versus having it run within the Dorico process. At the time we were collectively designing the architecture for this aspect of the software, we determined that running the engine out of process would provide us with benefits in Dorico that have perhaps been less apparent than we hoped, though we have been able to use the audio engine in other products and projects, which has to some extent vindicated the decision to design it in this way.
However, it is certainly accurate to say that these initialisation problems would be easier to solve if more information were passed on to the user. This is something we plan to improve as soon as we can.
As Ulf has said, it is intended that the VST scanning process should run only when the audio engine itself has been updated (which it was, unusually, in Dorico 5.1.60, for example, which explains why many longtime Dorico 5 users experienced a re-scan after installing that update), or when you add or remove VST plug-ins from your system.
It appears that on some systems, including Craig’s (@VV1), that plug-in scanning occurs more frequently than expected. Ulf will do his very best to get to the bottom of that problem as well, and if it is within our collective power to fix it (not only we in the Dorico team, but the engineers who work on these other shared components), then we will fix it. But these fixes can take time, and the problems can be complex.
Right now, we don’t know for certain what the underlying problem or problems are. Ulf is working on a methodology to gather more data, which he will post about soon in a new thread.
In the meantime, please continue to ask for help if you need it. For the vast majority of Dorico users, the software starts reliably and without this delay. But for the unlucky minority who are afflicted with this issue, it really is helpful to see the diagnostic report so that we can learn more about the specific circumstances (including specific plug-ins that may be suspect) on each machine.
Thanks for your patience.
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This may/may not be relevant but as in post #42 ("things get wonky if the machine has gone to sleep’), that’s been my experience, too. Rather than shut it down, I used to leave my Mac in sleep mode overnight. One/two months or so ago I noticed that when I woke it, Dorico was no longer working. A restart would fix things. This happened every night for a week or so until I changed my habits and now I shut my Mac down at the end of the day. Haven’t had a problem since.
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It is obvious at least to me — and I fully expect to all serious, constructively oriented, and good-faith users here in the forum — that you and the entire Dorico team take every aspect of the user’s experience very seriously, @dspreadbury.
I appreciate your collective openness to feedback, directness and honesty in moments when Dorico reveals some flaw or gap (either of functioning or design), clarity of explanations, and generosity in offering assistance. Even many of us who are not among the “nattering nabobs” sometimes have legitimate reasons to register thoughts for improvement and observations of problems, and it’s comforting and heartening to know for the evidence that, far from being ignored, our input is valued and taken seriously.
I appeal to all fellow members who may not (yet) see that to at least give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, contribute to this forum constructively/positively (not to be confused with mindlessly accepting Dorico as is and “loving it unconditionally”), and work productively to share the information that will help a solution emerge.
This is generally a marvelous forum filled with good will. Let’s please keep it that way!
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I’m new to Dorico (have only used it since Finale passed away). I have experienced intermittent, unpredictable, but frequent problems with startup and the sound system. Most commonly the problem has been the unresponsive audio engine, but at times a project loads and won’t play (the players’ assignment to Halion is grayed out). I have Sibelius and MuseScore and I think the final version of Finale on this computer, no other VSTs, and none appear in Dorico aside from the Halion stuff. I just tried to attach the diagnostic file but I received a message to the effect that the file is too big. Happy to try again if the size barrier can be overcome.
After multiple kill/restart cycles my little project is playing again.
Here’s a new thread to enable the Dorico team to diagnose what’s happening:
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Hi @StephenC , please send your diagnostic report directly to u dot stoermer at steinberg dot de
Thanks
For what it’s worth, I was having the audio engine problem on a MacBook Pro; sometimes Dorico wouldn’t start, other times it would say there were elements missing–but reinstall wouldn’t fix the problem, despite the wording of the error message. Ulf patiently helped me troubleshoot it, alas to no avail in terms of getting a fix “under the hood”; in the end I suggested I just wipe my system and reinstall everything (it had been a long time since I’d done that); he agreed, and fortunately that all went quicker and more smoothly than I’d hoped. Long story short, it solved all the problems I was having with Dorico and the audio engine. I know it’s a pain to do this sort of thing to solve such a problem, but I’m not sorry I had to do it this way – I now have a better grip on my set-up, and was able to banish Avid from my system altogether (don’t get me started on Avid’s install/uninstall madness and their lackluster customer service.)
I was impressed with Ulf’s kind assistance and his dedication to helping users. He even reached out to me later, after working with another user, having realized what the problem had likely been. The whole Dorico team is so focused on good customer service, it’s one of the things that keeps me using Dorico. Their attention to detail and follow-up is stellar. And rare in today’s world.
Fingers crossed that the problem doesn’t recur now…
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I just want to point out, that I am also currently having this problem.
I also have to wait around 30 minutes for Dorico to go through every single VST instrument and effects thats within my system, just so I can do some notation.
I’m furious, because I spent money on a professional notation software, only to be forced to use Musescore because Dorico Pro 5 won’t work since I purchased it. I don’t want to use MuseScore because I purchased Dorico for a reason, which is so I can use it.
Please for the love of life itself, fix this program problem.
I am going bald pulling out my hair because of this.
Thank you.
Upload your diagnostics and you will probably get a solution.
(And there’s no need to double post)
How many diagnostic reports does it take before Steinberg Devs eventually fixes the problem? 
This problem has been going on for many years now, as I have recently noticed while I have been recently googling this problem, and I am sure, so many other people have submitted their diags. 
So what gives?
I know Ulf has been working on this quite specifically. If there’s something new, it should be present in a next update…
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Often the problem is specific to an individual user’s configuration. So it is not a single problem to be ‘fixed’.
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Hi @RobFoss ,
is it really 30 min that you have to wait until Dorico finally launches? I’ve never heard of any such long time. So I’d like to investigate on this and see what we can do about it. Would you please post here a diagnostic report, in order that I can get a first overview. Thanks a lot