DVR Studio Pro does not start at all

[ptapola]

Since upgrading from 1.25 (to 1.40 and 1.41) I have had a curious problem. When I start the program, nothing happens. In Windows Task Manager, there is a brief flash of the process name, but it exits immediately without giving any error messages.

I have tried uninstalling the 1.41, rebooting and reinstalling 1.41 but it still does not work. I even uninstalled the 1.41 and reinstalled 1.25 but still no help.

Earlier I had the same problem but was able to get it working again by installing an earlier version. When I installed the 1.41 it first worked but when I today tried to start it, it does not work at all. And I cannot find any way of to make it work!

This is very frustrating!

[Ralf]

Hello ptapola,

you also had downloade the setup again?

[ptapola]

Yes. The first upgrade to 1.41 was made automatically, when the program detected a new version. Hence, the setup was not saved anywhere. At first this upgrade worked fine, but when I started it again, it did nothing.

Then I downloaded the new (English) 1.41 directly from the website, installed it, and tried to start it. The installation proceeded OK but I cannot start the program at all.

[Kimi]

@ptapola

if now the version 1.25 doesn't work any more, too then something else must have happened at the same time. Maybe a Windows update or something?
You can download the version 1.25 here just to make sure:
http://www.haenlein-software.com/HS/dow ... 125eng.exe

[ptapola]

I reloaded the 1.25 as instructed and installed it. No change.

The recent changes to the system are the typical hotfixes from Microsoft, but no change of OS or service pack. It is Windows XP, service pack 2.

Antivirus software was also updated, to Symantec Antivirus 10.1.4.

However, for a time, 1.41 worked quite fine and no updates were made. It just stopped working the next time I tried to start it. I had a similar problem already earlier, but then installing 1.25 (or maybe it was even an earlier version).

The only thing that I can think of is the license handling. It is, I assume, the only thing that stays in the system after uninstall.

In any case, there should be no way for the program just to exit, without giving any message at all. In case there is a program error, Windows opens up a dialog to tell that. As the program stops without any message, it must be part of the program code. Maybe there are some issues that are never checked but an error just causes an exit?

[Kimi]

@ptapola:

Maybe there are some issues that are never checked but an error just causes an exit?

Yes I'm pretty sure this is the case... Could you please have a look into the "logfiles" directory? For version 1.40 and 1.41 you find it in "C:\Program Files\<your user name>\Applicationdata\Haenlein-Software\DVR-Studio Pro\Logfiles". I'm not so sure about the english directory names, but they should be similar.

Zip all the files an email the zipfile to me (you find my email addres in my forum profile).

I don't think this is a licence or registration issue as then at least the about-window is shown with "licence expired".

[ptapola]

Did you mean C:\Documents and Settings\... ?

There is a directory username\Application Data there, but it does not contain any Haenlein-Software directory, nor a DVR-Studio Pro directory.

And not even ...\Local Settings\Application Data contains either of those directories.

Could it be that for some reason the application is not able to open even the logfile? Hence, it stops execution completely?

There is 2.16 GB free disk. The Application Data directory protection gives full rights to the directory for my user account. All the other applications seem to have created their own directories there. So cannot think why the creation of the log file is not successful.

[Kimi]

@ptapola

yes, Documents and Settings - I'm sorry. So you didn't find any "Logfiles" Directory? Ok - if the software already crashes before it can create that, then the problem appears in a very, very early stage of the software-startup.

In DVR-Studio 1.25 the logfiles were stored in C:\Program Files\DVR-Studio Pro\~Log. Maybe you find some there? The naming of the files is Debug*.log.

[ptapola]

Now I realized that the version I had installed was 1.25, when checking for the log files.

However, no log files even there.

Now I reinstalled 1.41 and checked the Haenlein-Software\DVR-Studio Pro directory. It includes DVD-Work directory that contains index.txt file, which contains only one line "DVD-Work". No other files or directories in the whole directory tree.

[Ralf]

Hello ptapola,

in the version 1.41 you can openthe logfile in the settings windows. There is a Button.

[ptapola]

Might be so. However, as the program does not start at all, that is quite hard to do...

[ptapola]

After making some experiments, I am now able to start DVR-Studio Pro. I used Windows Explorer to first select the DVR-StudioPro.exe and then right click and Run As... using the default settings.

I then get an Info dialog telling me that I have "Testversion: expired at 12.01.00". When I press Register... and supply the customer number and license code, as gotten from the license key web page. The Serial Number in the info dialog matches that of the one in the web page.

When I copy-and-paste the license key to the dialog, along with the customer number, and click Register, nothing happens. The Info About... dialog still complains about an expired test version. If I press I Agree, the dialog goes away and nothing happens.

So I am still not able to run the program, but at least I have made a bit of progress.

Hence, after all, it seems that my problem is somehow related to license key issues.

[Ralf]

Hello ptapola,

please check these points:

Do you have install the correct program? DVR-Studio - DVR-Studio Pro.
Do you use the actually version 1.42
Do you use the customer number? NOT the invoice number!
Copy the license key from your customer area from our homepage in the program. Maybe a firewall blocks the internetaccess for the program.