Sigil 0.7.2 won't run on Windows 7 64-bit
 

I'm getting pretty discouraged. I was using Sigil 0.60 64-bit very happily. I uninstalled it and installed 0.7.2 32-bit... but have never been able to run it. When I launch 0.7.2, either from its own icon or by double-clicking an epub, I instantly get a message from Windows saying that "Sigil has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program."

I've tried just about everything I can think of. Searched the Internet high and low for similar reports. Nothing. Uninstalled, reinstalled, at least a half-dozen times. No help. Deleted my Sigil config folder in AppData. No help. Tried running the installer with administrative rights. Same result.

Just for the 'fun' of it I tried installing 0.7.1. That didn't work either. Then I tried 0.6.2. Sonofagun... that version works just fine. I uninstalled 0.6.2 and tried 0.7.2 again. Nope, still no luck. Clearly, this is a problem with Sigil 0.7.x. The Qt 5 installation dialog doesn't appear with version 0.6, so that's where I'd place the blame at this point. But that doesn't get me any closer to a solution.

This is ridiculous... I'm running Office, Adobe Creative Suite, any number of major applications with no problems. Sigil should be low-impact, by comparison. Any theories? Any suggestions on what else I can try??

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit. Intel Core i7, 16GB memory.

Thanks!

It should work without a problem. Undelete the version you have now and remove all traces, including the sigil.ini. Then try reinstalling.

As I mentioned in my original post, I have repeatedly uninstalled, removed all traces, and reinstalled. About 18 times, and counting... Each time, I have checked that the Sigil folder was gone from Program Files as well as Program Files (x86), and that the sigil-ebook folder (containing sigil.ini) was gone from AppData\Local.

I can't see any reason to hope that repeating these steps a 19th time will solve my problem.

Is there anywhere else I should be looking for "all traces"? And is there any particular reason that version 0.6.0 would work fine, and 0.7.2 would not work at all... given that they're both running on exactly the same Windows setup??

Not clear what you mean here. "No Qt5 installation dialog appears with v0.6." Am I to understand that a Qt5 installation dialog IS appearing when you install v0.7? You shouldn't be seeing a Qt install dialog anwhere during a Sigil installation. Can you clarify what you mean here?

Sure... During 0.7.2 install, I get pretty much the same dialogs as with 0.6.0. But near the very end, I see a small rectangular box, which flashes by very quickly. Looks like the usual bar indicating installation. I *think* it said something about Qt... but it goes by very quickly. Not really a 'dialog,' as such, since it doesn't request any input.

I've tried it again, and actually managed to grab a capture. The box says "Extracting Files" in the title bar. Below that, there's two lines: "Extracting File .\.\.\DHtmlHeader.html," and below that "To Directory h:\230948na;lkhjaf" (a bunch of hex code, which I'm not copying exactly). What's odd is that H: is actually a USB drive that I don't use for anything but backup storage. No idea why it would reference it.

By the way, that folder doesn't actually exist on h:\ when the install is finished. And of course, Sigil 0.7.2 still crashes when I try to run it, as before. Would I be wrong in guessing that the installer is getting confused, and trying to put some stuff in the wrong place?

That sounds very strange. You did get the installation file through the official Sigil channels, right?

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/

Try removing your USB drive and installing again. It sounds like you've put the installation file on your USB drive.

It does sound strange. However, I did get the file from the link on the main Sigil page, https://code.google.com/p/sigil/. (Just tried it again, and the files seem identical.) I am not running the installer from my USB drive... it's on my D: drive, which is a 1TB Caviar Black, and installing to my C: drive which is a SanDisk SSD. I even tried installing with the USB drive unplugged, but Sigil still didn't work.

A DHtmlHeader does sound like something that either Sigil or Qt might want. I can't help wondering if something on my system isn't tricking the installer into this behavior.

I've been searching my Registry for Sigil entries. Nothing too unusual... a tiny entry for the program itself, several entries in the audio policies, a bunch of entries to link Sigil with epub files. However, there is a larger entry for Qt, under the heading Trolltech. I'm next going to try uninstalling Sigil and then deleting that one before installing again.

That seems to have worked! After all this mucking about, I'm not jumping to conclusions, but Sigil 0.7.2 does seem to start normally now. Hopefully, it will keep doing so!

My firewall, Comodo, alerted me that just before I saw that DHtmlHeader message, the Sigil installer called VCredist. So, the message is presumably coming from Microsoft's Visual C component updater. Does Qt need that? If so then I'd say the problem is that Qt is leaving crud in the Registry, that trips up later installs. Oddly, my Registry now has no 'Trolltech' entries at all. Maybe I have other Qt apps on the system that are interfering with each other? Or could the Trolltech entry be connected with an older version (or different build) of Qt? (Hopefully, I'm not going to find that something else has now stopped working!)

I also emptied my Temp folder before reinstalling this time... could be a previous version of the installer components got stuck in there. Anyway, I seem to be back in business. Amazing.

The VCredist is there to install the required C libraries. Since Sigil is written in C++, it is needed.

I've seen some strange auto-maintenance-type things happen with VCredist on Windows 7 when other programs attempt to install it. My one Windows 7 machine says it's "repairing" the runtime libraries after a Sigil install. Haven't had any problems with Sigil on it though.

vcredist using the H: drive - I think that is normal behaviour. I think it looks at all available drives & writes temp files to whichever has most free space. that would be the strangely named stuff which is not there afterwards.

PS for future complete uninstalls including automated registry searches, google & get Revo uninstaller.

Oh, joy -- Sigil has stopped working again. Same error as before.

I checked the registry, and guess what: that Trolltech Qt entry is back. So I'm suspicious this is the cause of the problem. There's another Qt-based program I use regularly (XnView) that's replacing the entry whenever I run it. That registry entry has two sub-entries, "Qt Factory Cache 4.8" "Qt Plugin Cache 4.8 false," so maybe there's some sort of version problem between Qt 4 and 5.

Somebody probably needs to look into this. Should be easy to verify: just try running Sigil 0.7.2 and XnView MP 0.53 on the same Windows 7 64-bit system.