On my Windows PC, Anki Desktop launches to a blank/white window. No decks or cards appear, and after roughly 20–30 seconds, the window closes by itself. This also happens when starting in Safe Mode. My data is intact—I can access all cards on AnkiWeb and on the iPhone app—so it seems specific to the Windows desktop client. Have gone through all the troubleshooting steps and no changes.
Try running Anki from a command prompt so you can see what is causing the crash – Startup Issues - Anki Manual . [If you’re using a newer version, installed with the launcher, the command is %LocalAppData%\Programs\Anki\anki-console.exe instead.]
I can’t tell from your post whether you were already using Anki on this computer when this started happening one day – or this is a fresh install – or if you’d recently upgraded from another version. It will probably help if you explain how you got here.
Have tried that and this is what I get back:
Error: Failed to run (-1073741819): C:\Users\AppData\Local\AnkiProgramFiles.venv\Scripts/python.exe -c import aqt, sys; sys.argv[0] = ‘Anki’; aqt.run()
Press enter to close…
Any guesses as to why?
Ah, that looks like the launcher that’s failing – not Anki itself.
If you’re upgrading from a pre-25.07 version the launcher needs to do its one-time setup, and something is blocking that from happening. Take a look at other related threads.
https://forums.ankiweb.net/search?q=Error%3A%20Failed%20to%20run%20(-1073741819)
I had a look through the other related threads, but most of them seem to point to Astrill VPN as the culprit. I don’t have Astrill (or any similar VPN software) installed, so I’m a bit confused about how the same issue might be occurring on my system. I also couldn’t find a clear solution in the other threads, so any guidance on what else could be blocking the launcher setup would be much appreciated
I don’t think I saw your response to this.
I should check too – you made it past the launcher step, right? Past this screen:
– so the blank window that is opening for you is the actual Anki window, with this at the top?
It could be something that doesn’t seem like a VPN to you – there are apps related to “privacy” and “security” that are really VPNs at heart.
What about this suggestion – Astrill prevents Anki from starting - #13 by abdo ? I notice that’s almost the same as the command in your output, but your path name doesn’t include a username, so I wonder if it’s finding the right directory.
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