Optuma just disappears

Author: Optuma Team Last updated: Feb 4, 2020 09:49

Overview
Either on start-up or in general use, Optuma suddenly disappears with no warning.

There are a number of ways that this can happen but the most common are:

1. An Anti-Virus program is terminating the program.
Anti-Virus works by looking for patterns of 1’s and 0’s which match virus signatures. Since Optuma is made up by over 4 million lines of code, it is possible that a “false positive” is triggered.

Solution
Hopefully the Anti-Virus program is keeping a log so you can confirm that it was the issue. In most cases you can instruct the AV program to White-list Optuma. Some common AV software providers are listed here. <../antivirus-and-security-software>
If there are any concerns contact our support department.

2. There is a Windows fault and Windows is terminating the program.
Optuma interfaces with Windows by DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries). As Windows Updates are released, the interfaces which Optuma uses can change. When that happens, Optuma tries to send a command to Windows which Windows does not recognise and then Terminates Optuma. This is a fairly rare event but we have had it happen before.

Solution
You will not be able to solve this issue and our support department needs to informed straight away. The way you will know if this is the issue is if there is an entry in the Windows Event Viewer.

  • Press the Start Button in Windows and type “Event Viewer”
  • When the Event Viewer opens, go to Windows Logs and look for a recent Error.

In this example there was an error in libeay32.dll. This information is critical for us and we need you to send it to us. Once we found this we were able to patch that immediately and solve the issue.

3. The Graphics driver crashing (more often with Intel Drivers)
In the same way that Optuma talks to Windows, Windows also talks to graphics cards via the Graphics Driver (this is software which is provided by the Graphics Card Manufacturer). As Windows updates, it is possible for the Graphics interface to change and no longer work. Graphics Card companies are usually very quick to solve this.

Solution When this happens the solution is to make sure that the Graphics Driver has been updated. We have detailed instructions on that here

4. Optuma could be off-screen.
If you have multiple screens, it could be that Optuma is simply opening where a screen used to be, or that Windows has shuffled the screen order and things are just not set up the same way (again we see this after a Windows Update).

Solution
Fortunately there is a quick key press you can use on to minimize all programs and the restore them to the main monitor.

  • Press Windows+D to Minimize
  • Press Windows+D again to restore to the main screen