Win7 x64 Audacity 2.1.3 Side by Side Conflict Errors

On my system Event Viewer identified a Side by Side conflict with Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime.

I didn’t need VS2010 anymore so I uninstalled it and the error went away.

Audacity seemed to work OK even with VS2010 but I didn’t test every feature.

Do you mean you could not launch Audacity with VS 2010 installed?

If you ever want to build Audacity you should use Visual Studio 2013.


Gale

I am also getting a sidebyside error that does not occur with 2.1.2:

Activation context generation failed for “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\audacity.exe”.Error in manifest or policy file “” on line . A component version required by the application conflicts with another component version already active. Conflicting components are:. Component 1: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_fa3b1e3d17594757.manifest. Component 2: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_41e855142bd5705d.manifest.

Error occurs on launch, however, program seems to run fine. Reverted to 2.1.2, no more errors. (Win 7 x64)

Thank you for the report.

It is good that you monitor Windows so closely, but I am unclear what the practical problem is if Audacity launches. I sometimes see this error too (it is not repeatable), but I see no ill-effects.

I have noticed the embedded manifest changed between 2.1.2 and 2.1.3. This is probably because a different computer was used to build 2.1.3 than 2.1.2. This points to a possible solution that a testing build could be provided with no embedded manifest but with the 2.1.2 manifest shipped with the application. This has not been tried out or commented on yet by a developer.


Gale

At the moment, it looks like on the machine being used for building, codesigning the 2.1.3 release so that there is a named publisher causes the change in the manifest. Without codesigning, the embedded manifest in 2.1.3 is the same as in 2.1.2.

Obviously the codesigning is desirable because it improves security. So this may point to re-examining/updating the tools used to do the signing.


Gale

As a further note, Even when I remove Visual Studio for Office tools, if you run any MS Office 2010 office app, Visual Studio Tools automagically re installs after boot.

This error occurs on both my Win10 laptop and my Win7 X64 desktop.

I have yet to see any actual issues associated with this.

On my machine, the “practical problem” is:

An Audacity SxS error is logged multiple times in each Windows session even when Audacity is not launched, so Event Log fills up with errors. It is a nuisance to constantly clear those errors just to read other events which may appear in the log.

Where exactly does that get logged in Event Viewer? What is the Event ID and is it the same ID as when launching Audacity?

I would go back to 2.1.2 if Windows monitoring is important to you, or try recompiling Audacity 2.1.3 with the 2.1.2 manifest embedded. The developers will not reissue 2.1.3 for this.


Gale

Its in 'Windows Logs:Application. The Event ID is 78. Oddly in my case its showing up in my log. even tho I have not run audacity in some time, as such it was very surprising to me to see an Audacity related error.

Log Name: Application
Source: SideBySide
Event ID: 80
Level: Error

Description: Activation context generation failed for “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\audacity.exe”.Error in manifest or policy file “” on line . A component version required by the application conflicts with another component version already active. Conflicting components are:. Component 1: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_fa3b1e3d17594757.manifest. Component 2: C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_41e855142bd5705d.manifest.


C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_fa3b1e3d17594757.manifest
C:\Windows\WinSxS\manifests\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.7601.18837_none_41e855142bd5705d.manifest

Note: This error has been logged 14 times in the current session.

and is it the same ID as when launching Audacity?

Yes. The same event was logged 3 times upon first launch of Audacity during the current Windows session.

The developers will not reissue 2.1.3 for this.

I only use it on rare occasions and do not expect an immediate resolution. Just documenting the issue so it will be addressed in future releases, thanks.

Hi All

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1304813

This fixed this issue for me … note that ProgramFilesX86 has write protection … you need to copy Audacity.exe to the desktop …do this and copy the modified version back.

Not helpful.
That link goes to a two page topic with no clear resolution.
Also, your first post in this topic says that you solved it.

Copy back the modified version of what? Are you referring to changing the manifest?


Gale

I understand that most users would not want to do that.

There is another method that less sophisticated users could employ which is to use a resources editor like Resource Hacker to change the manifest embedded in 2.1.3 to that for 2.1.2. Here is a version of 2.2.0-alpha that was changed to the 2.1.2 manifest using that method http://gaclrecords.org.uk/bugs/audacity-win-r0ac2d90-2.2.0-alpha-13-may-17-with-2.1.2-manifest.zip.

If anyone wants to try that and see it it gives SxS errors, just extract the file from the zip, place it in your 2.1.3 installation folder and run it instead of audacity.exe. Make sure the original audacity.exe is not running before you test.


Gale

So I’ve been having blue screens and was looking in Event Viewer to figure out the cause. Now I’m 99% sure this has nothing to do with the blue screens but I figured I’d check it out and fix it if possible anyway.

I’ve been getting this exact same error. It was logged 4 times, in the span of 38 minutes without ever having opened Audacity during the session.

This fixed it for me, at least as far as I can tell thus far. No error when opening Audacity with that .exe and no errors so far without having opened Audacity.

Audacity can’t crash the computer. You can try WhoCrashed which is often able to identify the source of the problem in simple terms.

Thanks for letting us know.


Gale

So I ended up solving the blue screen issue and yes it had nothing to do with Audacity of course. Regarding the Audacity error however, it came back when I loaded a project from the actual project file. However that is only because it ran the original audacity.exe (even if I moved or renamed it) but after deleting it and renaming the 2.2.0 alpha one to take its place it works totally fine no errors at all. Judging from what I read in this thread and another I doubt that the error really did anything harmful however its still nice to be error free. :smiley:

I can confirm this on Windows 10 Pro x64, version 10.0.15063. For a while I thought Windows was going bonkers again as SxS errors can be a real pain and in some cases require a complete Windows reinstall, but downgrading or modifying the manifest seems to do the trick - rolling back to 2.1.2 got rid of the error log spam.

I have only just started to use Audacity 213 and have noticed that my event viewer has the side by side error id 8-0 in my event viewer as is mentioned in several tickets. Would I be correct in saying that the bottom line is that this is not an issue for version 212 ?

Thx.

I just started using Audacity just this past week or so…
and was checking my Windows System Event logs and came across the
SideBySide errors… any time I ran Audacity… same version v2.1.3

Any word on this issue? bug? fixes?