I have updated to the latest version of Anki and then it wouldn’t start anymore. So I uninstalled it and reinstalled Anki. When this did not result in any progress I thought that through the uninstall process something could have gone wrong and I used geek uninstaller to remove everything Anki from my drive, restart Windows and installed 25.02.4 again. But it still won’t start. I tried running it via cmd.exe but this also lead to nowhere.
This is the output:
Initial setup...
Preparing to run...
webview proxy use disabled
2025-04-30 12:41:25,104:INFO:aqt.mediasrv: Serving on http://127.0.0.1:65386
2025-04-30 12:41:25,575:INFO:comtypes.client._code_cache: Imported existing module 'comtypes.gen' from 'C:\\Users\\my_name\\AppData\\Roaming\\Anki2\\addons21\\111623432\\external\\comtypes\\gen\\__init__.py'>
2025-04-30 12:41:25,575:INFO:comtypes.client._code_cache: Using writeable comtypes cache directory: 'C:\Users\my_name\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\111623432\external\comtypes\gen'
Starting main loop...
I also tried starting Anki while holding down SHIFT but also here, Anki wouldn’t even start.
One other observation I had is that the location icon appears briefly in the taskbar and then disappears again.
Weird, the problem is most likely an add-on conflict caused by HyperTTS - Add speech to your flashcards (111623432), so holding shift while opening anki should disable as well
Then try manually going to C:\\Users\\my_name\\AppData\\Roaming\\Anki2\\addons21
I don’t think those HyperTTS messages are related to the issue. I get those and everything works just fine. [Deleting the add-on folder will also delete all settings and configuration you have saved for it, so I wouldn’t jump to that quite yet.]
Did you hold it down long enough to get the confirmation message?
Did you try running from the command line while holding down Shift?
Have you tried everything else on the Troubleshooting Checklist (even the things that you think aren’t the problem) – Troubleshooting - Anki Manual ?
Did you hold it down long enough to get the confirmation message?
Yes, I got the message on the bottom left corner.
Did you try running from the command line while holding down Shift?
No, I didn’t try that. I had no idea that this is possible.
I tried the trouble shooting suggestions but nothing really worked.
I think I got it back to work though. I uninstalled Anki with geek uninstaller again, let the program search for leftover files and then searched for “anki” in Windows file explorer and deleted everything on my system that showed up. After this it worked again. I will now add one by one the addons back in and how that it will not crash again.
Interesting development, today it stopped working again… Over night Anki shuts down during the sync window. First thing I did was open it while holding SHIFT, deactivating automatic sync, restarted my PC. Anki however, still shut down when opening.
So I did the next logical thing and did the exact same things als last time i posted my issue. But this time it didn’t help.
Out of curiosity I opened Anki again holding SHIFT and then logged into my Anki account. The moment it tried to sync it closed itself. Could this be in issue to investigate?
If I run it via %LocalAppData%\Programs\Anki\anki-console.bat I get to the point of it saying “Press any key to continue” and then it goes back to C:\Users\my_username
Anki starting…
Initial setup…
Starting Anki 25.02.4…
webview proxy use disabled
2025-05-15 21:19:14,897:INFO:aqt.mediasrv: Serving on http://127.0.0.1:54826
Starting main loop…
Press any key to continue . . .
If I run the command while holding SHIFT, Anki opens up. But the moment I try to sync, Anki shuts down.