Smaart v8 / Di v2 / SPL v1 won't open or crashes at startup

Created by Casey Guli, Modified on Tue, 13 Jun 2023 at 02:39 PM by Casey Guli

Smaart v8 / Di v2 / SPL v1 won't open or crashes at startup

There are two common reasons that Smaart would fail to open: a licensing problem or a problem with an audio device driver.

Licensing problems produce specific Error Codes (523, 509, etc) and usually say "Please Contact Customer Support". Please visit this support knowledgebase section for more information.

The second reason is an audio driver problem. While Smaart is launching, it checks the operating system for available audio devices. All available devices are individually polled to determine their configuration (input/output channels, sampling rate, etc). If the device's driver crashes during startup it can stop Smaart from launching.

As of v8.0.2, Smaart creates an audio device log every time it starts up. If Smaart won't get past the splash screen, both in Windows and on macOS, any sort of audio device issue will be recorded in this log. If you are having issues, you can send this log via email attachment to the support team and we can help diagnose and resolve the issue for you.

This log can be found by navigating to your user folder, then to Documents\Smaart v8\Logs

If you can start Smaart, but cannot find your device or get it to work, please refer to this article to see specific details on Smaart v8 device troubleshooting.

If you're on Windows, you can try following the steps below to get Smaart working again:

If the Windows error offers a choice to view the details of the problem, choose that option and look for the source of the problem in the error report. The error report will sometimes list the file that was being used when the crash occurred (usually a .dll file) under the title "Faulting Module Name".
If the Windows error does not offer more details, navigate to the Windows Event Viewer and look under Windows Logs -> Application for the Application Error. This error event will almost always have a Faulting Module Name.
If you find a Faulting Module Name, use a search engine to determine what software uses the file. Otherwise, determine which audio device driver or audio-related software was most recently installed.
Try reinstalling the latest version of the software or driver from the manufacturers website.

Some DAWs bundle various audio device drivers with their main installer. These drivers will be automatically installed when you install the main software suite. Most of the time these drivers are unneeded and can be safely uninstalled without harming the functionality of the DAW.

If you still cannot find the source of the problem, try uninstalling any old unused audio device drivers that are installed on your computer.