Anki keeps crashing? (New install, no add ons)

Anki Help
1

I’m trying to reinstall Anki (24.11) after installing a new operating system (Windows 11).

Every time I open the app, it flashes up and then immediately closes. I tried restarting my computer and the problem still wasn’t solved.

I tried holding shift while opening the program and it worked. However, when I tried to sync my decks from AnkiWeb it immediately crashes and closes after I press enter.

This was a fresh install with no add-ons. I’m really confused with what’s happening.

2

If none of the troubleshooting steps help, please do the following:

  1. Open anki in safemode in a terminal (anki --safemode).
  2. Press sync.
  3. Your anki crashed here.
  4. Copy the entire output (text) from the terminal into this forum. Please but them here like this:
    ```
    Your terminal output
    ```

The lines with ``` will disappear and a code block gets created.

3 
C:\Users\Administrator>cd C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Programs\Anki

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Programs\Anki>start anki.exe --safemode

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Programs\Anki>Anki starting...
Initial setup...
Preparing to run...
2025-01-21 13:24:35,500:INFO:aqt.mediasrv: Serving on http://127.0.0.1:54202
Starting main loop...

This is the full log after the crash.

4

Does the same thing happen in the beta version posted to the beta testing section of this site?

5

Hi, sorry for the delayed reply! I tried installing the beta (25.01) and the same thing keeps happening.

When I was installing Anki, I got this error message:

Error opening file for writing: C:\Program Files\Anki\mpv.exe

And the only option it gave me was to cancel the installation.

I found a solution on Reddit to go into my Task Manager and stop mpv.exe from running. I did this and then Anki installed.

But now it seems the program will crash any time it tries to sync (including on startup?)

6

I found a solution!

The problem was that I had Google Chrome as the default browser on my laptop. I changed my default browser to Firefox and the problem was solved! I’ll close the thread now.

7

Can anyone tell me why the default browser would have any effect on anki? I don’t see why Anki would crash without a backtrace or error just because of some OS setting which sets configs not even related to Anki.

8

I don’t understand completely (I don’t know anything about programming), but I think Anki was syncing via Chrome as this was the default browser (In fact, it was the only browser on my laptop). For some reason, I think Chrome was causing the error.

Once I changed the all of the default browser settings to Firefox, the problems stopped.

9

I highly doubt it though considering the Anki app basically is its own browser (chromium).

I’m glad it works for you. The reason why I asked is that I’m not really satisfied with only knowing what solved it; I also like to understand why it was solved that way. Maybe someone here has any clue to that.

10

Actually, the problems just started again. I have no idea what’s going on, it just crashes every time I sync.