Pro Tools crashes directly at startup (no splash screen) - possible solution

[BB.Kunz]

Hi everyone,
at end of december I had the problem, that PT wasn't launching anymore. Im running PT 2023.12.0 / later 12.1 on Windows 11.
From one day to another The PT-Shortcut in the startbar was renamed to something like "New Shortcut" and from there on it was not starting, just showing the PT-icon in the taskbar and not reacting any further. It crashed even before the splash screen, also not producing any logs.
I´ve run through all the general troubleshooting guides, incl.:
- moving the Plugin folder
- trashing prefs,
- clean PT removal (incl. Avid Link and manually deleting leftover PT folders)
- reinstalling with a new generated Windows admin account directly with the PT-installer
but the problem was still there. I could solve the problem with the Avid customer support, but after a few weeks, it occurred again. I'm still not sure, what caused the problem, but I could solve it again.

Now, that I've read in several topics a description of the same kind of error or crash, I just wanted to share, what helped me, to find the solution:

If PT crashes at this point druring the start (before the splash screen), there could be a problem with the ilok/license.

On PT 2023.12 for Windows it seems that there is no warning message, that PT doesn't find an ilok or license, the program will just stop starting.

Even after a clean install of PT with another Windows admin account (which should reinstall the ilok license center if it was removed before) I suggest checking the ilok license center and making sure that the ilok ir recorgnized and the PT license is activated. That solved the problem for me.

Maybe this is helpful to someone, who has a similar problem.

[tope d]

Originally Posted by BB.Kunz

Hi everyone,
at end of december I had the problem, that PT wasn't launching anymore. Im running PT 2023.12.0 / later 12.1 on Windows 11.
From one day to another The PT-Shortcut in the startbar was renamed to something like "New Shortcut" and from there on it was not starting, just showing the PT-icon in the taskbar and not reacting any further. It crashed even before the splash screen, also not producing any logs.
I´ve run through all the general troubleshooting guides, incl.:
- moving the Plugin folder
- trashing prefs,
- clean PT removal (incl. Avid Link and manually deleting leftover PT folders)
- reinstalling with a new generated Windows admin account directly with the PT-installer
but the problem was still there. I could solve the problem with the Avid customer support, but after a few weeks, it occurred again. I'm still not sure, what caused the problem, but I could solve it again.

Now, that I've read in several topics a description of the same kind of error or crash, I just wanted to share, what helped me, to find the solution:

If PT crashes at this point druring the start (before the splash screen), there could be a problem with the ilok/license.

On PT 2023.12 for Windows it seems that there is no warning message, that PT doesn't find an ilok or license, the program will just stop starting.

Even after a clean install of PT with another Windows admin account (which should reinstall the ilok license center if it was removed before) I suggest checking the ilok license center and making sure that the ilok ir recorgnized and the PT license is activated. That solved the problem for me.

Maybe this is helpful to someone, who has a similar problem.

Hi Stephan!

Thanks for sharing. yes, that's the usual workaround for Pro Tools not launching due to account/admin rights issues.

Do you want me to create a case for you on this? Just let me know so I can fire one up.

Thanks again!

[BB.Kunz]

No, thanks, I'm fine now!


But I found it worth to mention, that in my case it wasn't problem with PT, rather with a missing license or ilok.
The interesting thing may be, that there is no more warning or error screen for that (f.e. as usual on my Mac system). PT just hang up.