Pro Tools won't load (no splash screen)

[Yoshaan]

The Error:
On launching Pro Tools (as admin or normally), the icon appears in the taskbar, but no window appears my screen anywhere. Hovering over the taskbar shows a thumbnail of an empty window title bar with no name, although it is not actually present on my screen.

At times, the taskbar hover thumbnail does show a name: "Waves Offloader".

Also, this may be related: after installation, Pro Tools does not show up in the "apps" menu of Windows 11 (via start search or the list). I have to manually find the .exe in the Pro Tools folder in Program files.

Also, strangely: sometimes the taskbar hover thumbnail displays the title as "Waves Offloader".

This error existed in previous versions as well. The recent 2023.12 update is compatibility with my version of Windows (Windows 11 23H2), so it is not a Windows compatibility issue.



Things I have tried:

• Trashing preferences (from appdata)
• Moving all plugins from the plugins folder to a separate folder on my desktop.
• Reinstalling, restarting
• Removing all extraneous sb devices

More notes about my system:

• I have Adobe Creative Cloud installed. I have not tried uninstalling those to try Pro Tools, not yet at least. Those software are important to me so I would do this only as a last resort.
• I have an nVidia RTX card with the latest drivers.
• I am using an AMD Ryzen processor. Pro Tools did work before, so I don't think it's a processor issue.

[junkgear]

Waves Offloader is a product of Waves Audio and has nothing to do with Pro Tools. Do you have or did you at one time have Waves plugins installed? I would start there and see if you can figure out why they are blocking PT from starting.

[JFreak]

Welcome to the community.

Please take a look at the "Help Us Help You" page linked to the forum header.

[take77]

On my Windows 10 system for some reason the Waves Offloader in the start menu changes to the same shortcut icon as Pro Tools.

I double clicked on the Waves Offloader and it actually opened Pro Tools. If you go to "open file location" it takes you to the Avid folder.
I'll have to check out the Waves forums to see why it assumes the identity of the PT icon.

Usually when you install PT on Windows it creates the shortcut on the Desktop. While the Start menu has the Avid folder which includes documentation etc.

If you somehow deleted the shortcut that PT creates on the Desktop:
Go to Programs>Avid then locate the Pro Tools .exe right click and choose Send to>Desktop (create shortcut).
Just ignore the Waves Offloader icon in the Start menu and remove it from the taskbar.

However, if you can't open PT straigh from Programs>Avid>Pro Tools.exe that would be odd.

Did you uninstall the previous version of Pro Tools before re-installing the new version?

If that didn't work you might have to uninstall and do a quick CCleaner scan, clear the registry only of Avid or Waves files that aren't pointing to anything & then re-install Pro Tools.
If anything, the proper shortcut should appear on the Desktop after reinstalling Pro Tools.

As a separate note: I just opened Waves Central and see an update is available so I'd recommend updating that if it's installed.

[Yoshaan]

Originally Posted by take77

On my Windows 10 system for some reason the Waves Offloader in the start menu changes to the same shortcut icon as Pro Tools...

Yes there seems to be some sort of accidental connection made between Waves and PT.

Regardless, I have tried opening Pro Tools directly from Avid > ProTools.exe with the same error (no splash screen, just a task bar icon with no thumbnail).


I have already updated waves and I did uninstall previous Pro Tools (wiped folders from AppData, ProgramData, etc).

I haven't tried CCcleaner yet, however. I will check that out next.

[Yoshaan]

Originally Posted by Yoshaan

Yes there seems to be some sort of accidental connection made between Waves and PT.

Regardless, I have tried opening Pro Tools directly from Avid > ProTools.exe with the same error (no splash screen, just a task bar icon with no thumbnail).


I have already updated waves and I did uninstall previous Pro Tools (wiped folders from AppData, ProgramData, etc).

I haven't tried CCcleaner yet, however. I will check that out next.

After running CCleaner, uninstalling Waves, and then reinstalling only Pro Tools I still get the same error.

Note that this error occurred previously a few months ago and I ended up reinstalling Windows from scratch. The first thing I installed on the new OS was Pro Tools and the error was still occuring.

I checked task manager during launch and it went from running to not responding within 2 seconds, although no error message comes up unless I try to start while holding "n"

[tope d]

Originally Posted by Yoshaan

After running CCleaner, uninstalling Waves, and then reinstalling only Pro Tools I still get the same error.

Note that this error occurred previously a few months ago and I ended up reinstalling Windows from scratch. The first thing I installed on the new OS was Pro Tools and the error was still occuring.

I checked task manager during launch and it went from running to not responding within 2 seconds, although no error message comes up unless I try to start while holding "n"

Hi Yoshaan,

I've found the support case you've opened under Case 04727716.
I've alerted the team on your case.

Thanks!

[take77]

Originally Posted by Yoshaan

Note that this error occurred previously a few months ago and I ended up reinstalling Windows from scratch. The first thing I installed on the new OS was Pro Tools and the error was still occurring.

That is a mystery and no doubt frustrating.
Especially after a clean install.

I've seen a similar issue a while back where PT would sometimes stay open in the background after closing a session without my knowledge.
I'd go to open PT and it wouldn't respond when trying to launch it again.
Task Manager would still show the Pro Tools exe. in the list of background processes. I'd have to end the process manually before launching again.
Haven't noticed it happening since the past few versions.

But right after a fresh install is weird.
Looks like the professionals have created a case or you and I hope you guys can figure it out!

[Darryl Ramm]

What is almost certainly going on here is Waves crapware has installed one or more symlinks or shortcuts called Pro Tools.exe. What you think you is a Pro Tools.exe is just that symlink or shortcut. Waves Studiorack does this crap with multiple DAWs and is known for causing exactly this problem. I have no idea if Waves uninstallers will remove all the symlinks/shortcuts correctly or not. But just delete those symlinks/shortcuts manually (and reinstall Pro Tools if needed).

CCcleaner like tools will not know to remove these. Doing a full clean install of Windows would fix this, but I expect here the Windows install that was done was on the existing volume which kept the errant symlinks/shortcuts.

You can google more about working with symlinks and shortcuts if they are new to you.

How Waves decided to package this seems just a bad bad idea.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Waves crapware

Oohhh... and I get bashed when I say WavesHell