Sibelius crashes on startup when it reaches the part "Initializing Playback System". I've sent in the crash logs. I'm using an Apogee Duet 2 which requires its own driver. I didn't have this problem before...but honestly I can't remember what precisely it was that might have changed to cause this new behavior. I tried upgrading to Sib 7.1.2 in the hope that it might fix the problem, but so far no good.
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7.1.2/Mac Pro, 8-core
This indicates that the source of the crash problem lies in the stored per-user settings for Sibelius. It could take a long time to narrow down which setting or file is the problem.
I hope that working in a different account is a viable work-around for you.
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Sibelius 7.1.2/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 7.0.2, Dolet 6 for Sibelius, Windows 7 32-bit SP1, 4GB RAM
It sounds as though the alternate account might be my best bet for the time being. Fortunately I don't use Sibelius all that often, and switching to a different account isn't as time-consuming as rebooting.
Thank you for the quick reply and a viable solution!
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
I'd suggest you download Onyx from Titanium Software in France, and run their cron scripts (Maintenance>Scripts) and then verify your preferences in Verify>Preferences, trashing any corrupted prefs that you find. If that doesn't cure the problem, then look for a corrupted font. Verify the SMART status when Onyx starts up with no applications running.
It would be worth trying to trash your Sibelius preferences (com.avid.sibelius7.plist in ~/Library/Preferences) and the Playback Configurations and PlogueEngine folders in ~/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7 in your original user account to see if that takes care of it.
You might try unplugging ALL peripherals from the back of you computer except for the mouse. If Sibelius starts up you can narrow down which peripheral is causing the issue by using this method:
Unplug all peripherals and then plug back in in 50% of them. If Sibelius starts up occurs, unplug that 50% and plug in the other 50%.
If that causes Sibelius not to start up, cut that 50% that are plugged in to half, now you have 25% of peripherals plugged in. If Sibelius doesn't start, cut that 25% in half again. If not, unplug what's plugged in and plug in the other 25%.
Keep doing this til you're down to one peripheral . . . that's the one to upgrade software to or replace.
It's laborious, but a cheap, tried and true method of finding the problem, if it lies in the peripherals.
Thanks for the ideas. One of the odd things here is that I can run Sibelius 6 just fine on this same user account. It's definitely something specific to Sib7.
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
Daniel's suggestions helped get Sibelius to launch past its original crashing point, which as "Initializing Playback" but after it checked Audio Units, it crashed again.
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
I should also mention that after it crashed after checking Audio Units and VSTs, it then started crashing again at its original point in the process, which was "Initializing playback system".
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
Sounds (no pun intended) like a problem with one of the AUs or VSTs installed on your system. Try removing all of the plug-ins from /Library/Audio/Plugins/Components (for AUs) and VST (for VSTs) and then putting them back a few at a time to see if you can figure out which one is causing the problem.
Contact Sibelius technical help by phone (charges may apply):
USA & Canada: +1 650-731-6106
UK: +44 (0)1753 658585
Australia: 1300 652 172
Other countries: www.sibelius.com/support
I tried that and it still crashed, although it waited until after the point where it was checking through AUs and VSTs.
I don't have any plugins installed just for my user account alone, and the program launches just fine when I log in under a different account name. So it's got to be something unique to this account alone. How could that be a plugin? All of my plugins are installed for all users.
I looked at the report that the OS offers to send to Apple. The crash comes shortly after the com.plogue.SibeliusHostingEngine calls but not during them. Here's the apropos part of the report:
Crashed Thread: 0 Sib - Main Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
VM Regions Near 0:
-->
__TEXT 0000000100000000-00000001023ff000 [ 36.0M] r-x/rwx SM=COW /Applications/Sibelius 7.app/Contents/MacOS/Sibelius 7
Application Specific Information:
objc[36501]: garbage collection is OFF
That crash log certainly seems to imply it's an effects plug-in it's trying to load. Try deleting your 'Playback Configuration' and 'PlogueEngine' folders in /Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/Avid/Sibelius 7 and then try running Sibelius again.
Contact Sibelius technical help by phone (charges may apply):
USA & Canada: +1 650-731-6106
UK: +44 (0)1753 658585
Australia: 1300 652 172
Other countries: www.sibelius.com/support
Deleting those folders didn't help. I also tried deleting all of my plugins (AUs and VSTs) to see if that would change things, and it didn't. Sibelius checked through all the plugins at startup, of course, but then it crashed it precisely the same place as the log above. (So I put the plugins back.)
I don't have any plugins installed for just my user account alone; they're all common to all users. Is there any place another one might be lurking that's causing the problem?
I should mention that I used Logic Pro's Plugin Validation tool to validate all of my plugins, and they all passed.
However, Logic Pro is 32-bit. My impression is that Sibelius 7 is 64 bit. Is that true of Sibelius 6 as well? My user account runs Sibelius 6 just fine.
But if that's the case, then why is Sibelius 7 crashing for my account, and not when I run it in an alternate account? It seems to come back to some plugin lurking around somewhere...I just wish I knew where it was.
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
You could try running Sibelius 7 in 32-bit mode if you wish. Find its icon in Applications, type Command-I, and in its Get Info window, switch on 'Open in 32-bit mode'.
Contact Sibelius technical help by phone (charges may apply):
USA & Canada: +1 650-731-6106
UK: +44 (0)1753 658585
Australia: 1300 652 172
Other countries: www.sibelius.com/support
I deleted the ScoreThumbnails and the ManuscriptPaper Thumbnails in User/Application Support/Avid and that seemed to do the trick.
The program crashed one more time -- this time while loading the AU Components, and then on the next startup it did fine. It re-generated its score and manuscript thumbnails.
I had also removed the PlaybackConfiguration XML file, although a check between old and new versions (when the program made a new one when it finally started up) didn't show any differences.
So precisely *why* it finally got going again remains a mystery. But I got rid of something that was choking it.
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Scott L. Foglesong
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sib 7/Mac Pro, 8-core
