Resolution: Startup crashes with latest Sonar release

[Noel Borthwick]

It's come to our attention that a very small number users have crashes on start up for the newest version of Sonar.
The symptom is the app disappears on startup. This issue has been confirmed to be due to the presence of a corrupted Microsoft VC redistributable. Sonar relies on the VCRedist runtime at a very fundamental level for proper operation so a corrupted install will cause the app to crash in unpredictable ways.

In all the most recent reported cases the problem was caused by to the installation of an old obsolete VC runtime some other applications. 

The available redists from a new Sonar installation looks like this in Add/remove programs.

If you have lots of older redists than this and have startup problems, uninstall all the redists and run the latest Sonar installer which should reinstall the latest ones.
Alternatively, you may also install the latest Microsoft redistributable directly from Microsoft and to do a repair install in the installer.
Read this article for more info on this.

 

 

[Living Room Rocker]

Good morning, Noel.

Should this be a sticky?

Kind regards,

Living Room Rocker

[Gary Magnusen]

Hey, Noel.

I did everything in this post, but Sonar still won't run.

I had DaVinci installed, and uninstalled it, still Sonar won't run.

I reinstall Sonar, also.

What's next?

[Starship Krupa]

15 hours ago, Gary Magnusen said:

I had DaVinci installed, and uninstalled it, still Sonar won't run.

I reinstall Sonar, also.

What's next?

Did you:

On 8/19/2024 at 10:08 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

install the latest Microsoft redistributable from Microsoft and to do a repair install in the installer.
Read this article for more info on this.

The idea I'm getting is that just uninstalling DaVinci Resolve won't set things right. That will just leave you without Resolve and no Sonar either, because it doesn't address the problem of the Microsoft redistributables needing to be the latest.

Follow the link, update the redistributables, and see what happens.

Installers that just go ahead and overwrite the MS redistributables without checking to see if a newer version is already installed should be categorized as malware for all the damage they do.

Edited September 19, 2024 by Starship Krupa

[Jonathan Sasor]

On 9/18/2024 at 10:47 AM, Gary Magnusen said:

Hey, Noel.

I did everything in this post, but Sonar still won't run.

I had DaVinci installed, and uninstalled it, still Sonar won't run.

I reinstall Sonar, also.

What's next?

Have you ruled out that it's not something with the audio driver? The original note here was for a very specific situation, however, if there's an issue with being unable to open the audio driver, that will also cause the app to not open after the splash screen. 

[Frank Thomas]

great comprehensive sleuthing @Noel Borthwick.  keep up the great work.

[Jan Germonpré]

On 9/19/2024 at 8:07 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Did you:

The idea I'm getting is that just uninstalling DaVinci Resolve won't set things right. That will just leave you without Resolve and no Sonar either, because it doesn't address the problem of the Microsoft redistributables needing to be the latest.

Follow the link, update the redistributables, and see what happens.

Installers that just go ahead and overwrite the MS redistributables without checking to see if a newer version is already installed should be categorized as malware for all the damage they do.

This did the trick for me. Thx!

[Noel Borthwick]

On 9/19/2024 at 2:07 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Installers that just go ahead and overwrite the MS redistributables without checking to see if a newer version is already installed should be categorized as malware for all the damage they do.

This isn't totally accurate.

In this case the malware is the old Microsoft redists themselves lol. Installers don't overwrite redists themselves. App installers just install the Microsoft redist installers. The problem is that old versions of the MS installers cause problems. 

Recently Microsoft started shipping universal redist installers but many companies don't seem to have caught on to this and are still using the old installers. This is the main source of the problem.

[Starship Krupa]

3 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

App installers just install the Microsoft redist installers. The problem is that old versions of the MS installers cause problems.

Thanks for the clarification.

Wow, so Microsoft's redist installers themselves don't have the smarts to check for a newer version?

I still think that app installers that will cause this scenario should be flagged as malware. I suspect that if that were the case, those companies that haven't gotten the memo would get their necessary learning experience.😁

[Promidi]

9 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

.....so Microsoft's redist installers themselves don't have the smarts to check for a newer version?

This is why whenever I install any program, I make it a habit to see if it has installed an earlier version of the Vdist runtimes.  If so, I re update them.

[David Inglesfield]

I was just on the point of installing DaVinci Resolve and had got to the screen with a series of tick boxes to install various redistributables when I hazily remembered a thread on here (this one as it turned out) where people mentioned it causing problems with Sonar. I’m actually using Cakewalk rather than Sonar but I’m still wary.

Having aborted the installation, I thought I’d ask if there are people on here who have installed Cakewalk (not Sonar) then later installed DaVinci Resolve and found that Cakewalk WASN’T affected. I don’t want to go through some rigmarole with repairing my Cakewalk installation. I can do without DaVinci Resolve if necessary.

But maybe I could install it, but untick all the boxes for the Microsoft redistributables? If the latest versions of these are already installed, wouldn’t Resolve then run fine using those?

[pedwal wally wally wha]

which version does cakewalk install?

just a quick reinstall, it's 2019

Edited November 6, 2024 by lɐʍd

[David Inglesfield]

Well, Noel said that Sonar uses the latest versions, so presumably Cakewalk is the same, but I'm not sure about that. I'm running the latest version of Cakewalk by the way.

[pedwal wally wally wha]

On 9/27/2024 at 11:08 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Wow, so Microsoft's redist installers themselves don't have the smarts to check for a newer version?

they do, but only if the installer tells them so, "SxS" side-by side versions, but tbf the newer versions usually manage all the old versions' functionality

[Noel Borthwick]

After further investigation, we are in the process of updating our installers to auto repair a broken redist installation. This should help alleviate ongoing issues with corrupt redists. If you have the problem, please download and run our redist installer which now attempts to restore a broken C++ redist installation.
Our main Sonar and Next installers should be also updated shortly with similar capabilities.

[wolfstudios53]

Thanks Noel! The redist installer worked well!

Up and running again!

[aleo]

I'm not an expert on the code for Windows, but isn't there a relationship between C++ Redistributables and Windows systems software?  If so, would it be helpful to run the systems integrity check, sfc /scannow, every few months or before installing a Sonar update or is it totally unrelated to the redistributables  problem?

[dougalex]

On 8/19/2024 at 1:08 PM, Noel Borthwick said:

If you have lots of older redists than this and have startup problems, uninstall all the redists and run the latest Sonar installer which should reinstall the latest ones.

My XPS17 was purchased new in July 20, 2023

Early this morning both Cakewalk by BandLab and Sonar (lastest Beta) started getting get "not responding" during launch. 

I have all these (sorted by date installed) but I would like confirmation of what to uninstall

[pedwal wally wally wha]

On 12/14/2024 at 1:04 AM, aleo said:

sfc /scannow

this can solve so many weird issues 👍

[dougalex]

On 12/12/2024 at 11:13 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

please download and run our redist installer which now attempts to restore a broken C++ redist installation.

I ran the "redistr installer" and still BOTH Cakewalk and Sonar (latest Beta) go "Not responding" on launch

After running "redistr installer", here is what is showing (What should I remove?)