VA never starts

[razorclamm]

Hi all,

I have a major issue with Voiceattack - first time installation and I have tried both the regular install and the steam version. Both give me same result.

Whenever I launch the app its process is visible in Task Manger and sits at about 15% CPU use and 50MB memory usage but it's not visible on the taskbr and I cannot access the UI by any means; if I ALT+TAB I can see the process there but if I try top switch it it nothing happens.

I have tried the startup options for disabling various settings but the result is still the same, I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, removing the appdata folders and files.

All efforts give me the same result - the app just runs in the background at the same resource usage and I cannot use it.

Any help appreciated.

[Gary]

Hi, there.

That's a very atypical issue that you're experiencing, however, something very similar has come up recently.  I hate to have to ask this before diving into lots of questions, but, have you recently used a bootlegged version of VA that had you run an executable (as an admin) that generates some kind of key file?

[razorclamm]

I hate to say that that I did, yes, however as it didn't work I removed it all immediately and figured I'd just buy it.

Now I'm having these problems.

Presumably it's my fault for being stupid to begin with.

Is there any way to resolve it?

[Gary]

Ouch -

Just the other day a group of folks on Discord attempted to help out an individual in the same situation as yourself for literally half a day to no avail o_O   The good news, however, is at the end the user updated their pc to Windows 11 (hail mary pass) and the problem no longer persisted (at least that seemed to be the case - haven't heard anything more).  So, the assumption is that the executable that was run had affected more than it stated and whatever components that were affected were replaced by the update.

I don't know what the extent is at this point, but if this happened to me I'd be changing passwords on like everything :(

[Gary]

If I learn more about what that thing does, I'll make sure to post in this thread.

[razorclamm]

Damn!! Okay.
Well as we speak I'm reinstalling Windows from scratch. I haven't got the right TPM for Windows 11 sadly.
Once I reinstall, first thing I will test is VA, then post here hopefully once it's working.

[razorclamm]

Confirmed all working again after OS reinstall.

[Gary]

I'm glad you got it sorted, but sad it took all that to get up and running again.

Be careful out there!