Newly-installed Dorico 4 playback not working

[JustusR]

Hi,

I’ve successfully installed Dorico 4 on my new Windows 11 computer, using the appropriate way (I think…), i.e. using the Steinberg Download Assistant and Activation Manager.

After installation, the program starts OK, but when I open one of the demo files, I get error messages about uninstalled sound files (see below). I’ve tried a full de/reinstall, with the same results, and after that I also tried a “Install again” for the Halion Sonic 7.1.0. The same occurs if I try to open one of my older files.

If I ignore the warning, I don’t get playback sound with any of the 3 pre-installed HSSE playback templates.

Help would be appreciated!

Justus

[Ulf]

Hi @JustusR ,

the problem is most likely file access rights. Please download, unzip and then run the attached batch file. Simply do a double click on it and after a few seconds on your Desktop the file VAEDiagnosticsReport.zip should appear. Attach that one to a reply here. Thanks

And you could also take a screenshot of the Steinberg Library Manager, please. That shall tell us what contents files Dorico “thinks” are installed.

CreateVAEDiagnosticsReport.zip (782 Bytes)

[Ulf]

Hang on, or is this article pertinent to you?

[JustusR]

Thanks, Ulf. No, not this one, I think. I don’t use Cubase, or any other Steinberg product. I installed Dorico 4 on a Laptop that I only bought the day before, so it seems unlikely there are atypical file access problems, but I’ll try out your diagnostic suggestions anyway.

[JustusR]

Here is the library manager:

[Ulf]

Library Manager looks also good. What if you click on the Details button on the right side, what installation path does it show?

[JustusR]

Here is the output of the batch file. I stand corrected: I saw lots of file access errors scrolling over my screen.
VAEDiagnosticsReport.zip (4.4 KB)

[JustusR]

The details of the Library Manager show files at:

C:/ProgramData/Steinberg/Content
and then either HALion (with subdirectory VST Sound) or VST Sound

These directories exist and have files in them

[JustusR]

Behind that warning in my second screen dump, there’s also a warning “No Macro Page Found”, in case that’s helpful and/or relevant

[Ulf]

thanks for the diagnostics report. Indeed, it is a file access problem. If you have a look inside yourself you see the file SMTGContents.txt and SMTGContentsAccess.txt. In the later one you see lots of lines saying
“Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files”
With proper access rights, my script should be able to simply read and list the vstsound file’s permissions but it’s failing for most of them.

[JustusR]

Thanks for checking further, Ulf.

Checking access permissions:

ProgramData:
Hidden
Read-only (Only applies to files in folder)

Steinberg: and ./Content and then ./VST Sound
Read-only (idem)

But then the actual files in ./VST Sound (including the ones that show access problems) have both hidden and read-only unticked

[JustusR]

So I guess what else do I need to check for “proper access rights”?

[Ulf]

Do a right click on a vstsound file and choose properties and then click on the Security tab

[Ulf]

This is what it looks like with me

[JustusR]

Ok, will do that now. Meanwhile, I notice I don’t have a
Shared Components
in folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg
(i.e. the INPUTDIR4 from your script

[Ulf]

That with the shared components is optional.

[JustusR]

Ok, the security tab reports I don’t have read-permission (and therefore doesn’t list any of the details you have).

This then prompted me to run Dorico with administrator rights, and that worked!

So I’ve got enough to progress from here, though I would still prefer to know whether I could run Dorico without Administrator rights.

In any case, thanks very much for your help!

[Ulf]

You can run Dorico as administrator but that will only lead to more trouble in the future, so don’t do that. Better fix the access rights on the contents files.
To do that, you can start the File Explorer with administrator rights. Simply go to ‪C:\Windows\explorer.exe and do a right click on that and choose from the pop-up menu Run as administrator. The rest follows suit.

[JustusR]

Hmm. Not getting much joy. If I open the explorer as Admin, I still can’t initially see the security data. I can overrule this with advanced options, but then it shows I (administrator) have full access… (I’m admittedly a bit out of my depth here…)

[Ulf]

In your screenshot you see the user account S-1-5-21-…?
There must be another account under which you normally work, you have to add that one to the list as well.

Here’s how that looks with me:

I clicked Edit, then Add and then typed Guest just as an example.
You need to find your normal user account there.