Latest version of Vivaldi wouldn't start

ledsales

On trying to open Vivaldi, it doesn't open. A brief dialog box pops up saying please wait for Vivaldi to close. That then disappears and then nothing. This occurred after the last update to 6.8.3381.46. No matter how many times Vivaldi is restarted, the same thing occurs.

Note that yesterday this also happened, but it started correctly on the third try. Today, nothing after a dozen attempts.

I've uninstalled it and gone back to 6.7, hopefully this issue will get fixed.

System is Win10 Pro on 2nd gen Ryzen, 32GB/1TB SSD etc etc.

Zalex108

@ledsales

Hi,
You could Install 6.8 as Standalone.
Go to your working profile and disconnect from Sync
Clone it and past it to the standalone overwriting the default (Being disconnected, any test changes will not populate)

Then, test out there.
If fails

Start with the Basic Desktop Troubleshooting Steps.

Extras

Clean Site Data
Clean Service Workers
vivaldi://serviceworker-internals/
Reset Flags
vivaldi://flags [If personally enabled]
Disable CSS / JS Mods

Regarding Bug Hunting | Toubleshoot Disconnected
Regarding Downgrades | Security issues

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Also,
Some useful links:

Forums	Community	Official Tutorials	Official Help

Forum Categories	Modding Vivaldi	Vivaldi Features	Vivaldi Help
Forum Markdown	Panels • Engines	Vivaldi Tutorials	Issues
Feature Requests ¿?	Menus • Guides • FAQ	Vivaldi How To	Bug Reports

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Avoid Data loss
Follow the Backup | Reset links below

Vivaldi Backup | Reset + Extra Steps

Meriadoc

@ledsales
I've got the same problem after upgrading Vivaldi. I've found following workaround:

rename Sessions and Session Storage folders
Start Vivaldi empty, and let it recreate the folders.
Delete the newly created Sessions folder and rename the old folder back.
Now Vivaldi starts with all tabs intact. It may lose session data, so it might be neccessary to relogin everywhere

This happens everytime after closing the browser, however. I noticed when I try to open Vivaldi, the update notifyer starts, but then it disappearsand nothing happens.

Alternatively it also possible manualy save session, and restore it from empty Vivaldi(after previously deleting other files from Sessions folder)

Have downgrade helped you?
I may try the same. Perhaps it is some sort of incompatibilty with new spaces feature

Meriadoc

@ledsales
@Zalex108
Confirm, no more problem after switching down to the highest 6.7 version
I did lose session data and cookies probably because of previously performed described manipulation

ledsales

Yes, so far no problem since going back to 6.7. All I did was take a copy of the vivaldi user data folder just in case, uninstalled 6.8, leaving user data in place, installed 6.7 and all was fine, just losing cookies etc, so yes, have had to re-login everywhere, but didn't lose any tabs etc.

Ayespy

@ledsales We are finding that with the version change to 6.8, more than one 3rd party security app has decided to block Vivaldi. This is the fault of such apps, not Vivaldi.

Vivaldi never supports rolling back to an earlier version, due to security concerns, and the fact that it frequently can corrupt a profile. It's not advisable.

That said, I wish you luck.

ledsales

Thanks, but it's not something on my PC blocking Vivaldi, none of my security apps have it listed as blocked, and Vivaldi was popping up a box stating it was closing and to wait for it to close.

So far, there have been no issues with going back to 6.7, although I think it's probably a bad idea to design it so that reverting to an older version may cause problems, if anyone has issues with the latest version, they need to be able to revert back. Clearly there is some sort of issue as Meriadoc had exactly the same problem.

Meriadoc

Just expierenced the issue again with 6.7: didn't start after the dialog pop up. But Vivaldi started at the second attempt

Ayespy

Word to the wise: The issue is not with Vivaldi. The issue is with Vivaldi+something.

The issue is too rare and non-reproducible for devs to address.

Any user who suffers the issue is invited to try the Troubleshooting Steps.

If no joy there, come back here for guided troubleshooting, to help determine what in the local environment of your instance, or what you have added or changed, or what toxic website in a recent session is causing the issue.

DoctorG

Sometime newer Vivaldi version were not correctly allow-listed by security solutions on the PC or do block it start.

And downgrade of browser profile to Vivaldi 6.7 is not advised by Vivaldi Team as it can cause unexpected issues which can not be fixed.

I never have seen startup issues with 6.8 and 6.9 on my Windows 11 with Windows Defender.

ledsales

Ok, I am also having issues again, even after staying on 6.7. Yesterday I had to start it twice before it would start, this morning it took six attempts. I haven't tried it, but I fully expect to not be able to start it at all tomorrow without a reinstall. Issue is the same, no errors on screen, just a box briefly flashing saying Vivaldi is closing.

At this rate, I will be dropping Vivaldi, which I really don't want to do as I find it to be just about the best browser out there, but if it randomly won't start for no apparent reason, and that isn't fixable, then that's not viable.

Ayespy

@ledsales This is literally not a Vivaldi problem. It is a problem of Vivaldi+Something on your system.

Have you tried all the Troubleshooting Steps? It often turns out to be something pretty straightforward.

ledsales

That's a nice theory, but no other browser, or any other application of any type, and I have many, has this issue. The fact that it just starts happening randomly and is inconsistent doesn't help.

But, most of those steps in the troubleshooting require Vivaldi to actually open, if it won't open at all, there's not much troubleshooting to do except a reinstall.

Ayespy

@ledsales You are on desktop/laptop yes?

Have you tried with a completely clean profile?

And factually, Vivaldi just works here, on ALL of my machines, be they Windows new or old, Linux, or android. So why would it break for you, but not for me? That's easy: environment.

And a false assumption made by many is that their digital working environment doesn't treat Vivaldi any differently than it does any other app on their machine. There are any number of ways a work environment or work habits can break Vivaldi. The trick is figuring out what, exactly, broke it - because something did. It did not arrive at your machine broken.

ledsales

Desktop, yes, but it hasn't just broken for me, it also did exactly the same thing for Meriadoc which implies there's more to the problem.

My install was fine until I upgraded to 6.8, that's what caused the initial problem, downgrading seemed to fix it until yesterday. Nothing else has changed on my system, I monitor/control windows updates manually because of the tendency for MS to break things, so it isn't a windows update issue. Nothing else has changed, no new software, the same antivirus (webroot) etc, have checked, vivaldi is allowed there.

I've also noticed other flaky behaviour with Vivaldi, for example I had it installed on a VM and I uninstalled it and on trying to reinstall it, it would pop up a "there has been an unspecified error, make sure Vivaldi isn't running" error. That sounded like a permissions problem, so I restarted the VM and tried to install it in a temp folder I created and the same issue popped up, it is simply uninstallable on that VM now.

Of course, that has nothing to do with the issue of failing to start on my main machine, but it shows there seems to be a lack of error trapping in the installer, if nothing else, and if there are issues with the installer, there are likely to be issues elsewhere.

I'm just hoping there is a simple fix to this without me having to spend a bunch of hours creating fresh installs, clean profiles, etc, I simply don't have time to be fighting apps that won't behave...

Ayespy

@ledsales If you can't be bothered to troubleshoot it, then I fear I have nothing else to offer. You have a problem that cannot be reproduced here, so there is nothing to track down and fix, so developers will not be addressing an issue which is local to you (and maybe @Meriadoc ? Similar symptom, how can we know it it's the same cause?) as nearly as anyone can tell. There is simply no way to do it. We have addressed literally dozens of "Vivaldi won't start" issues and, in each case, it was resolved with a factor that was under the user's control. We will never know whether there is such a factor in your case or not.

Your issue could magically resolve with some future version of Vivaldi, but no one will ever know how or why.

ledsales

I realise it's a difficult thing to track down, but I suspect it's not just one or two people, and it's not new, I found this thread which describes the same thing from months ago, and basically nothing came of it: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/96967/multiple-tries-required-to-start-vivaldi-what-is-happening?page=1

I suspect others have had the same problem and have simply given up, I simply don't have hours to debug my browser, most people don't, they will simply use another browser.

Anyway, will see what happens with the next restart, I've created a backup option using Opera and replicated my important workspaces and tabs just in case I can't get it to launch.