DAWs won't open.

[peter.olsen3]

Not just CW, but Reaper, Reason, Live etc.  All was well at the last use, but now, when I try to open any DAW,  it looks OK for a second or two, but then closes. Other progs seem to be unaffected. Using a two-year-old Asus on WIN11. Should mention I'm not very computer savvy. Thanks, Pete.

[reginaldStjohn]

Sounds like a system issue. You should first try to repair/update/reinstall your windows installation. Then I would contact one of the DAW manufacturers for help (Support@cakewalk.com) for example.

[peter.olsen3]

Thanks for that. Have tried win reinstall. Wanted to try recover to an earlier time, then found that the default setting was not to set restore points. Have just found that Live can start up. Tried removing recent win updates, but no good. May have to just delete everything and start again - wouldn't be the first time! Thanks.

[Amberwolf]

The most likely problem is a driver, probably an audio driver, that auto updated to soemthing broken or incompatible with something else. 

Not much, but a place to start, perhaps. 

 

Noel Borthwick just posted this thread

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/topic/89074-using-microsoft-windbg-to-capture-crash-dumps-when-one-is-not-automatically-saved/?do=getNewComment 

that shows how to setup to capture crash logs, you may be able to use those to find out which thing is causing the crash in each case.

 

 

Edited July 31 by Amberwolf

[peter.olsen3]

Thank you. Wiii try tomorrow.

[mettelus]

7 hours ago, peter.olsen3 said:

Have tried win reinstall.

Having to reinstall Windows is very rare these days. Windows has built in tools to verify system files are intact and will repair them as needed. I would always start there first if you ever have concerns that the system itself may be having issues (across multiple programs). This is a good reference article for using both SFC and DISM. Read down through that (it explains how to open the command prompt in case you are unclear). 

The two commands most important are for SFC (system file checker), which will auto-repair (it it can):

     sfc /scannow

And DISM, which verifies your installed version of Windows with what it should be from an online version. To automatically fix any discrepancies the "RestoreHealth" switch will repair any discrepencies (you need to be online for the image to be compared):

     DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

That is also typed into the box insert in that article. That article has been useful, so they archived it, but also converted its formatting to "just text" which might confuse you, but it is still readable as an article. I boldfaced the actual commands you would type into the elevated command prompt window for you above (can copy/paste those into the command window also to save typing).

**** I would start with the above first before digging into other things, or "deleting everything and starting again" (that is RARELY ever needed) ***

Side Note: Going forward, a "disc image" of your OS drive is a better recovery method many times. Something to research when you have the time. It basically makes a Xerox copy of your C drive that you can restore if needed. There are free programs that will do images, and more accurate than Windows variants (rather than try to "undo" system changes, it actually replaces the C drive with a Xerox copy of itself when you knew it was "good").

Edited July 31 by mettelus

[peter.olsen3]

Thank you. I'll try what you suggest.

[peter.olsen3]

Thanks for replies. Tried the things Mettelus suggested unsuccessfully. Then did a fresh install of asio4all  (thanks, Amberwolf), and DAWs now (mostly) work. If I'd tried that first, I could have saved a few hours! Nice that people are prepared to help like this. Regards, Pete.

[Starship Krupa]

On 8/1/2025 at 3:28 AM, peter.olsen3 said:

Then did a fresh install of asio4all

Not a popular choice in these parts.

ASIO2WASAPI is my go to for ASIO wrappers, but with most DAW's you can just use WASAPI Exclusive in its native form. Ableton Live! is an exception, for some reason Ableton have as yet failed to support WASAPI.