Pro Tools 2021 will not launch on Windows 10...AT ALL!

[Soulstice1]

Uninstalled/Re-installed several times. Removed plug-ins to temp location, tried installing previous OS updates. Rolled back a Windows update. Tried running 2021.10, 2021.7, 2021.6, 2021.3, and Protools 10. Tried launching without plugin-ins...Absolutely nothing is working. The last time I was able to get Pro Tools to work was when I had Pro Tools 10. I even tried running that version but after upgrading to the Perpetual license, I am no longer able to use the Pro Tools 10 version. Can anyone provide insight???


Laptop: - MSI GE 75 Raider - OS: Windows 10 - Interface: M-Audio Air 192/14 - Pro Tools 2021

[EGS]

Is the M-audio supposed to work on Win10? Ilok? Standard AVID optimizations?

[Darryl Ramm]

That M-Audio Air 192/14 interface comes with Pro Tools First. Are you using Pro Tools First or Pro Tools standard (or HD) with that interface? Just want to be clear.

"Absolutely nothing works"... what *exactly* does this mean? e.g. What do you see when you double click on the icon to launch Pro Tools? Do you see a splash screen? How far does that get? What exactly does it say on the splash screen

What happens when you hold down 'N', and keep it held down when Pro Tools starts up. Do you see a playback engine dialog appear? What playback engine option are you selecting?

What exact driver version are you using. Hopefully that's an ASIO driver for that interface?

[The Weed]

Have you done all the Avid optimizations?

Have you looked here?

[cqd]

Are you sure your windows is 64 bit?..pt10 was only 32bit..

[Soulstice1]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

That M-Audio Air 192/14 interface comes with Pro Tools First. Are you using Pro Tools First or Pro Tools standard (or HD) with that interface? Just want to be clear.

"Absolutely nothing works"... what *exactly* does this mean? e.g. What do you see when you double click on the icon to launch Pro Tools? Do you see a splash screen? How far does that get? What exactly does it say on the splash screen

What happens when you hold down 'N', and keep it held down when Pro Tools starts up. Do you see a playback engine dialog appear? What playback engine option are you selecting?

What exact driver version are you using. Hopefully that's an ASIO driver for that interface?

When I say nothing works, I mean all of the different installation versions I mentioned in my post. But to clarify, the splash screen comes up but was initially stopping when I got to the Vari-Fi plugin. I moved that plug-in and Re-launched the app, splash screen came up and it stopped at the plugin before Veri-FI...I deleted the next plug-in and it would stop at which ever plugin came before the previous plugin I removed from the plug-in folder.
Ultimately I moved all of the plug-in and now the splash screen just closes mid way through the app launch.
I tried optimizations and cannot download PT First because the website to download showed the site is down for maintenance for the last 4 days.
The only reason I tried PT 10 is because that was the last version I purchased before going to the Perpetual License version.
At a complete loss because I can not get any version to launch beyond the splash screen.

[Ben Jenssen]

I've posted this several times; again, when PT freezes or crashes on loading, the plugin AFTER the one you see on 'loading' is the one causing the crash. Just pull out from plugins folder the plugin alphabetically AFTER the one you see loading on crash.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Soulstice1

When I say nothing works, I mean all of the different installation versions I mentioned in my post. But to clarify, the splash screen comes up but was initially stopping when I got to the Vari-Fi plugin. I moved that plug-in and Re-launched the app, splash screen came up and it stopped at the plugin before Veri-FI...I deleted the next plug-in and it would stop at which ever plugin came before the previous plugin I removed from the plug-in folder.
Ultimately I moved all of the plug-in and now the splash screen just closes mid way through the app launch.
I tried optimizations and cannot download PT First because the website to download showed the site is down for maintenance for the last 4 days.
The only reason I tried PT 10 is because that was the last version I purchased before going to the Perpetual License version.
At a complete loss because I can not get any version to launch beyond the splash screen.

Stop trying to mess around with Pro Tools First or any of this other crap. Pro Tools 2021.10 installs and runs on Windows 10, if not it's very likely something is wrong with your Windows 10 install and you should not waste too much more time before nuking it from orbit.

That plugin behavior is not so unusual, happens with incompatible/out of date plugins and if you've been installing different versions of Pro Tools you may have helped created this problem. Anyhow you've removed all plugins which is great. Pro Tools will automagically put back compatible core plugins when you start it up. It does that early during startup... are you seeing plugins put back in the plugin folder from trying to run Pro Tools? And seeing them load again in the splash screen? Or if does not even get that far?

Now you've got rid of the plugins you need to do other standard troubleshooting stuff, especially just trashing prefs (yes even if done before) and then starting up Pro Tools while holding down the 'N' key until you see the Playback Engine dialog (yes even if done before). Knowing it crashes before or gets to that dialog is very useful debugging.

What exactly is the splash screen showing "mid way through the app launch" when it crashes? Do you get any other popups/error messages?

For trashing prefs make sure you are following the correct instruction for your version of Pro Tools and Windows. Or even better still just buy Trasher https://www.pro-tools-pc.com/support/trasher

Pro Tools log files are human readable and can often provide a clue what is going on. See https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...o-Tools-System Maybe copy and paste the last few tens of lines from a log of a crash.

Failing something tuning up here, you should try starting with a new Windows install (not an OEM recovery/reinstall but a clean Microsoft Windows installer from microsoft.com, you may need to buy a new non-OEM Windows license.) and/or contact Avid support. When everything is a utter mess and won't work it's almost always Windows being screwed up and farting around with trying to roll back things etc. is often a waste of time. Kick it in the ass, do a full clean reinstall if nothing else here works. Again *not* an OEM recovery or install but a clean minimal install from a Microsoft image (ie. no OEM crapware) with bare minimum device drivers needed, and it's often better for you to manually select those minimal drivers, don't let Windows run and find all the drivers.