You haven’t got a piano loaded in Halion Sonic. Try Play>Playback Template… and choosing one (any should work).
Even worse than what Janus said, you don’t have any sound library installed except for the Olympus, but that is just a tiny library which only provides some choir samples.
If you go to the Steinberg Download Assistant, did you install every package that is listed in the Dorico section, especially the ones marked as ‘recommended’?
It should look like
for every item in the list, except for maybe the last one, as that is only a pdf with the version history. So once you’ve installed everything, please do the same test in Dorico again, you ought to get playback sound then.
I suggest that, after verifying the downloads per Ulf’s post, you also reapply the HALion Playback Template.
hi ! is this what you mean by playback template ?
still no sound . where would I find the piano sound ?
thanks !
holly
If you select e.g. HSSE+HSO (Pro) and click Apply and Close, then go to Play mode and click the e button to show the HALion Sonic VST instrument window, do you see any sounds loaded in there? If you click on the virtual keys of the keyboard at the bottom of the HALion Sonic window, do you hear any sounds? If you open the Mixer window in Dorico, do you see any flickering in the meters next to the faders when you either play your score or click the keys in the virtual keyboard in the HALion Sonic window?
hi !
does this answer the question ?
nothing makes a sound either manually or when the playhead is moving .
thanks !
holly
oh, and yes, the midi icon flickers, but there are no sounds . . .
h
No sounds are loaded, so perhaps there are still none installed. Did you follow @Ulf’s advice in this earlier post in the thread?
I’m using Dorico 5. I hear the piano as I enter the notes in Write mode; however, there is no sound during playback (and the play head is moving along the score). I’ve reset the audio engine and restarted Dorico. I also restarted the computer and Audient audio interface. Still, no sound during playback.
Any suggestions?
Welcome to the forum @Aelmsley .
Please do again, create a new piano project from scratch, enter a few arbitrary notes and confirm that playback is not sounding. Then choose from the Dorico menu Help > Create Diagnostics Report and post the corresponding zip file to a reply here.
Thank you very much
Hi Ulf
Thanks for the quick response. I launched Dorico 5 to do as you requested and this time I got sound coming out. I reopened the project that was causing problems, and it too worked as it should. I suspect that the DAW I was running alongside Dorico may have been prioritising audio resources.
I look forward to learning to use it in the coming weeks.
You’re welcome.
Have fun with Dorico 
For me, when I created a new (piano solo) project (Dorico Elements 5) everything was as it should have been, but looking at the mixer Dorico had opened up the project with all faders down - instrument AND master. Moving those fader to near zero solved my problem.
Welcome to the forum, Karl. Check the Play page of Preferences, and make sure the Default output level fader is set appropriately.
I have a new laptop, a Lenovo Windows 11 12th gen i5-1235U 1.30 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 64 bit.
I had Dorico 3.5 working fine on my previous laptop. I followed all instructions for downloading Dorico onto my new laptop, getting the licence etc. Everything worked fine… except there is no sound. I downloaded all the components or so I think.
When I load a score I get this pop up entitled HALion Sonic SE, an exclamation sign the following message: “Some audio files are missing. Please check installation”.
Then another appears, saying "A serious problem has occurred…save your project under another name and then restart VSTAudioEngine3.exe… If this problem persists contact Steinberg Technical Support…etc
I tried the suggestions made in this article / thread and they don’t appear to work. My sound works for Musescore fine, and YouTube was fine though at one point there was no sound from that too (until I restarted).
I haven’t a clue how to “check installation” or “restart VSTAudioEngine3.exe”.
In another thread: Restart VSTAudioEngine3.exe - Dorico - Steinberg Forums, this pop up message is mentioned and the reply is to send you a diagnostic report. See below:
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (197.6 KB)
Please help!
Thanks,
Conall
Welcome to the forum, Conall, and I’m sorry you’re having problems. It sounds as if the audio engine might be crashing during initialisation, and that would certainly explain why you get no playback in Dorico, because if the audio engine isn’t running, there can’t be any sound.
Annoyingly, the diagnostics you’ve attached doesn’t include any crash reports, so right now I’m not sure what to suggest. My colleague @Ulf will know what to do about that.
In the meantime, can you double-check that you have downloaded and installed the Dorico Pro 3.5.10 Sounds Installer download choice in SDA?
Hi @Conall , as Daniel already said, Dorico does not detect any sound content files with you, so double check on that.
Regarding the crashes, please have a look at this thread. Download, unzip and double click on that mentioned file and run Dorico again. Then check under the mentioned path for a crash dump file and post it here after zipping it up. Thanks