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 by the popular DaVinci Resolve video editing app. 

The resolution to this is to install the latest Microsoft redistributable 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 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.