Wasted Weeks trying to fight Dorico 4 install and usage problems

mhc.heydemann · February 25, 2022, 6:01pm

Hello

Sorry for this long message, but I’m now fed up trying to use D4, Yes I know not a good way to start a forum message by grumbling, Being French, you know …
And being long is likely to make helpers bored and forget about my message
But anyway, it will inform other potential D4 customers searchi the Internet

Bought a Dorico 4 upgrade to my Dorico 3.5 license by Feb 16. Worth to know I’ve been a happy Sibelius user for years, then a very happy Dorico (1, 2, 3 ) user as soon as released). I’ve also been working a sotfware developper for 35 years in hi tech US companies in Silicon Valley, a bit of experience then …

I also read lots of message from other folks mentionning the wasting of hours using D4 … So !!

Lots of problems already to install it (4.1) because of newUserID system, as at this date I was still using the previous system. Yes, I read there had been a change, but took me a while just to understand the problem.

It continued when activating D4, same reason. and I finally created a new UserID
Suggestion #1: At 1st attempt to install D4, please highlight the need for this and how to do it: There is just a small character phrase at the top of the Steingberg ID login window, and vven the link to create a new ID in that phrase isn’t highlighted as it is usual in browser pages

Then I opened an existing D3.5 project whit D4.1. It opened, but I experienced lots of problem to use the VST player I want (Aria Player, and others). Found a page in the user doc, fighted a bit to do what necesssary. And finally was able to set Aria player to a Dorico Player. Problem: doing do changes all the VST player set to the other Dorico Player (it was Halion SE pro)… No way to understand why !!

Of course, I watched the various introducing Dorico4 videos …

Tried to create a new project from scratch, using the setup mode. Added D4 players and layouts, but

none is visible in the write mode. no score. Found somewhere in the forum the requirement to add D4 players to a layout and how … Not very visible !!
but even then, not staff show in the write window
Also tried to assign VST players in Play mode:the D4 players can be seen, but no audio engine is visible, not even Haliom in the VST rack, and of course those that can be seen in the D4 version of the implicitly imported dorico file (didn’t use D4 import)

Voilà. Sorry again for a long grumbling message, but what to do then ?

Dorico Diagnostics.zip (569.9 KB)

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dspreadbury · February 26, 2022, 8:59pm

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had problems getting up and running with Dorico 4. If you think you might have ended up in the situation that you now have multiple Steinberg IDs and you would like to merge them, let me know (perhaps via private message) what the email addresses are, and I will ask my colleagues in our support team to merge them.

I can’t explain why you might be having problems with existing projects no longer playing back with the expected VST instruments. Do you have one of the original products in its 3.5-era state, i.e. before re-saving it in 4.0.10, that you could attach here so I could take a look at it?

mhc.heydemann · February 28, 2022, 8:59am

Thank you Daniel for your quick reply (as usual )

I already tried to run D351 on a older 3.5 project. It works and plays OK , running Halion Sonic SE… I never tried to use external VST players with D351.

No idea of what happened around D4. For sure the installation process was seriously disturbed in various ways by the Steinberg ID problems,

It seems to me that the best approach is now to use a simple stepwise approach, even if it takes a lot of time due to my low speed internet connection.

completely uninstall whatever that initial D4 installation attempt created, using appropriate exhaustive uninstall utilities
perform a complete reinstall using the UserID I finally created and which seems to work (ex: accessing this forum !).
If that works OK, create a D4 project from scratch avoiding to open an older D35 one, and get it playing with Halion . No attempt to use external VST player
backup a complete disk image of the D4 installation, so it can be quickly restored if …
then and only then try using external VST players. (In fact I never tried that with D35, only with Sibelius)

Later when everything is OK, I’ll indeed appreciate to change my UserID so it doesn’t refer to a gmail address anymore. Various combined reasons. I’ll let you know at that time

Thanks again for your help.

mhc.heydemann · March 1, 2022, 7:12am

A very serious question : is there any way to purchase a non download complete Dorico 4 installer ?

Why this question ? the whatever Steinberg installation manager ends up downloading 425MB + 734MB + 10.02 GB, approximately 11.5 GB

There are unfortunate folks, like me, who have no fiber optics Internet access, but only ASDL over older wired phone lines.

That’s not Steinberg fault, but that can happen and download speed is 250 KB/s, 1MB in 4s. Yes there are other kinds of Internet access, direct from satellites, but this way or the other ways may requirs significant expenses to be setup in an old house and deliver Internet to the appropriate plug location across older big walls in that house.

So for me, downloading the full D4 install 11.5GB requires 12 hours in the best case, hoping for no problem during them,

Would be great for these folks to get a DVD based license …

dspreadbury · March 1, 2022, 9:00am

We no longer produce any physical media for our products, I’m afraid. I don’t know whether it’s practical for you to visit somewhere with a faster connection (your local library perhaps?) and arrange to download the software onto a USB flash drive to take back home?

However, if you’ve already got everything installed anyway, I don’t think you need to uninstall and reinstall everything as you posted yesterday. We should just focus on sorting out your problem with ARIA and whichever other third-party VSTs you want to use. Reinstalling Dorico won’t make any difference to that in any case.

mhc.heydemann · March 1, 2022, 9:17am

Sorry to hear that, that’s life: you learn by experiments. For sure next time, I’ll try to find a more adequate place to perform Dorico downloads.

The complete reinstall from scratch of D4 is finished. D4 starts OK and shows the hub page, but I didn’t worked on creating a new project,

I really preferred to play safe, i.e. really restart from scratch, to be sure there is no impact of ant leftover

One question. the total size of the Steinberg Directories seems to be 2GB, far from the 12GB download. Is that correct ? May be I missed to identify other install directories, like sound samples for instance ?

dspreadbury · March 1, 2022, 9:25am

The Dorico sound content is located in these folders:

%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Content\HALion
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Content\VST Sound

However, I would suggest you don’t attempt to manually purge these files: if you are set on reinstallation, just let SDA reinstall all of the sounds, and Dorico will only update or replace the necessary files without you needing to interfere manually.

mhc.heydemann · March 1, 2022, 9:31am

Thanks for the quick info. It’s good to know where everything is, for backup purposes.

For sure, I would never try to manually touch some of the install files, apart from a complete uninstall of everything like I did. Too risky to break things.

mhc.heydemann · March 1, 2022, 1:09pm

Creating a new project and assigning Halion instruments worked perfect, including playing the audio for a few bars I entered
All VST players, including Aria Player are visible in the VST Rack. Didn’t yet tried to assign Aria Player and JABB3 instruments.
HD backup of everything created.

Conclusion: better strongly and visibly require a new UserID under the new Steinberg ID system is required before attempting any 1st Dorico 4 install . Not doing so ended up with a somehow corrupted install

So initially mentionned problem solved