trouble opening Dorico on mac

Hello Daniel et al,

I just downloaded Dorico 1.0.20, and tried running it. However, I seem to be getting the spinning beachball, and it won’t open. I tried restarting the computer, deleting the app and reinstalling it to no avail…

I’m running OS 10.11.6. Any help would be appreciated!

(I also tried opening a ticket on Steinberg support. I have a trial download code, but it doesn’t seem to recognize it.)

Thank you!


George

Hi George,

if you run Activity Monitor, is a process called “VST Audio Engine” listed?

Also, could you please zip up the folders

/Users//Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine
/Users//Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico

and post here, as they contain some log files that might help us identifying the problem.

Also try downloading the cleanup script that is linked from the FAQ

Hello,

  1. “VST Audio Engine” is not listed in Activity Monitor.

  2. I’ve zipped up the two folders and attached them here.

  3. I’ve downloaded the script - how do I run it? Do I use terminal for this?

Thanks!


George
VSTAudioEngine.zip (480 Bytes)
Dorico.zip (2.16 KB)

Yes, you run that clean up script from the terminal. Please run that and try starting Dorico again.

And thanks for the log files. The log file of the audio engine is empty so it doesn’t even get started. This is consistent with the Dorico log, it just stops while initializing the app. As said, please run the clean up script and try again. Even if still it doesn’t work, please attach again the logs, so we can see if something has changed.

Hello,

Just ran the script, and Dorico still doesn’t open; the icon on the dock just bounces up and down and then stops…

I’ve attached the Dorico log again; couldn’t find the VST one this time.

Thank you for your help!

George
Dorico.zip (1.07 KB)
Screen Shot 2017-02-07 at 9.33.58 PM.png

It looks like the cleanup script failed to execute because it can’t find the basic unix tools. Do you have homebrew, macports or some custom shells on your machine? Try running the script again using bash rather than ‘sh’:

bash <path_to_downloads>/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh

Hello,

I don’t have Homebrew, Mac Ports or other custom shells. I just tried running the script with bash instead and got about the same thing

George


Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ bash /Users/georgelam/Downloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh
: command not foundwnloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 2:
Kill any existing VSTAudioEngine and Dorico processes
No matching processes belonging to you were found
No matching processes belonging to you were found
: command not foundwnloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 6:
Remove preferences and application data
: Permission deniedwnloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 8: /dev/null
: Permission deniedwnloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 9: /dev/null
: command not foundwnloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 13:
/Users/georgelam/Downloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 18: syntax error near unexpected token fi' /Users/georgelam/Downloads/cleanup_prefs_and_engine.sh: line 18: fi’
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$

From the error messages, it looks like it’s trying to run the script with the wrong Unix shell. (It should be bash, and the first line of the script says “run this in bash anyway” even if you try to run it in something else)

The fact that you got “command not found” messages on lines 2 6 and 13, but those are actually blank lines (which should be just ignored) might be a clue…

“Permission denied” trying to write to /dev/null might suggest you are actually running a restricted version of bash (for example rbash) not the real thing…

The message from line 18 suggests whatever shell you are running can’t understand the bash syntax for “if” statements.

If you type “which bash” or “file bash” in the console, does the output say “/bin/bash” or something else?

Another possibility would be that something strange happened when downloading the cleanup script. If you look at it in a text editor, does it lool exactly like this?

#!/bin/bash

echo "Kill any existing VSTAudioEngine and Dorico processes"
killall Dorico
killall VSTAudioEngine

echo "Remove preferences and application data"
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg/Dorico/preferences.xml 2>/dev/null
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg/Dorico/diagnosticsettings.ini  2>/dev/null
rm -fr ~/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine
rm -fr ~/Library/Preferences/Dorico
rm -fr ~/Library/Caches/Dorico

DORICOTMP=$TMPDIR/Dorico
if [ -d "$DORICOTMP" ]; then
    echo "Removing temporary Dorico dir"
    rm -fr "$DORICOTMP"
fi

(Note: I’m not a Mac user but I have used plenty of different versions of Unix in my time)

Thanks for your help, Rob.

I typed in “which bash” in the terminal and it returned “/bin/bash”. The script looks to be exactly what you’ve pasted, and I just ran it again with bash and got the same messages…

Hrm…


George

So how about if you just run the single commands one by one in the terminal? If you reboot and not start Dorico, you don’t need that stuff with ‘killall’, important are the lines with ‘rm’, i.e. that remove some files and directories.

What Ulf said.

I wonder if you (or some other software you have installed) has set up an alias for the “rm” command to give you an “are you sure?” prompt, or something like that. That’s harmless if you are running the command interactively, but it can mess up a script because there is no way for you to answer the “are you sure” question.

Really, a script like this should either have an option after #!/bin/bash on the first line, to force bash to ignore user-defined aliases, or else it should explicitly run /bin/rm (or whatever directory the real “rm” program is in on Mac OS), not just “rm” which might be an alias for anything at all, if you have caught some malware!

(Not sure what the option is for bash - I learned my Unix before the Free Software Foundation came on the scene and wrote their own GNU versions of everything!)

Hello!

Just ran the commands one line at a time. Attached the results below, as well as the logs.

Dorico still hangs when loading.

Is there anything else I can do?

George


Last login: Sat Feb 11 12:48:02 on console
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ #!/bin/bash
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ echo “Kill any existing VSTAudioEngine and Dorico processes”
Kill any existing VSTAudioEngine and Dorico processes
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ killall Dorico
No matching processes belonging to you were found
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ killall VSTAudioEngine
No matching processes belonging to you were found
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ echo “Remove preferences and application data”
Remove preferences and application data
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg/Dorico/preferences.xml 2>/dev/null
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg/Dorico/diagnosticsettings.ini 2>/dev/null
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm -fr ~/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm -fr ~/Library/Preferences/Dorico
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm -fr ~/Library/Caches/Dorico
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ DORICOTMP=$TMPDIR/Dorico
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ if [ -d “$DORICOTMP” ]; then

echo "Removing temporary Dorico dir"
rm -fr "$DORICOTMP"

fiif [ -d “$DORICOTMP” ]; then
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `then’
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ echo “Removing temporary Dorico dir”
Removing temporary Dorico dir
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm -fr “$DORICOTMP”
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ if [ -d “$DORICOTMP” ]; then
echo “Removing temporary Dorico dir”
rm -fr “$DORICOTMP”
fi
Dorico.zip (1.07 KB)

That all looks OK, except you can’t easily run the final bit starting with the “if” one line at a time.

Do this instead:

DORICOTMP=$TMPDIR/Dorico
echo "$DORICOTMP"

That should output something that looks like a directory (folder) name, probably including “/temp” or “/tmp” somewhere, and ending with “/Dorico”.

Now check if that folder actually exists, and if so, delete it with

rm -fr "$DORICOTMP"

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your help. I wasn’t sure how to find that Dorico folder, but ran the rm -fr “$DORICOTMP” command and tried running Dorico. Still hangs.

Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ DORICOTMP=$TMPDIR/Dorico
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ echo “$DORICOTMP”
/var/folders/dh/4f2_g74s0qv17pqmsdd5mpf80000gn/T//Dorico
Georges-MacBook-Pro:~ georgelam$ rm -fr “$DORICOTMP”

So… I’m wondering if I should just give up and use Sibelius for a while longer…!

Might there be other ways to troubleshoot?


George

Hi George,

reading again your first post, you said: I have a trial download code, but it doesn’t seem to recognize it.

Is there some error message popping up when you start Dorico? Also, could you please run the eLicenser Control Center and post a screen shot of the displayed licenses.

It must be something tiny or trivial that prevents Dorico to start on your machine, because we have already hundreds of successful installations on various OSX versions, so it’s not a general problem.

Cheers,
Ulf

Hello Ulf,

No error messages; it just hangs and never opens.

I’m attaching the screenshot of the soft eLicenser. Let me know if this is what you’re looking for?


George

Ulf asked you to run eLicenser Control Center on your Mac, rather than going to MySteinberg. Can you post a screenshot of what eLCC shows?

Let me know if this is what you need?

Thanks!

George

Thanks, that’s what we wanted. So the license is recognized and still valid until end of February.

Still don’t know what prevents Dorico from running on your system. How about if you reinstall Dorico, have you tried that?