Spine Troubleshooting

Having trouble running Spine? Is Spine unable to start or crashes while you are using it? You have come to the right place!

While we strive for Spine to run flawlessly on all computers, sometimes things go wrong or Spine is run on configurations that we've never seen before. On this page you'll find a number of things you can check to get Spine running smoothly.

spine.log

When Spine runs, the first thing it does is create a log file at this location:

If any errors occur, they will appear in this file. Sometimes the error message is mixed with what looks like unintelligible information, so read carefully. If you can't make any sense of the errors, you can it post on the forum or send it to us. Please post or email the entire log, not just part of it (the forum will automatically remove your name and email from the log). Also, it helps a great deal to tell what you were doing when the error occurred. We love to fix bugs in Spine and are very grateful if you can help us reproduce any problem you might find.

Each time Spine runs the spine.log file is cleared. If Spine crashes you should check the spine.log file before running Spine again.

spine.log is missing

If the spine.log file is never created, it means that something went wrong with Spine very early in Spine's start up process. You may need to run Spine from the command line:

When you run Spine this way, Spine's logging is output in the command line window and you may see errors that give clues about why Spine is unable to start.

On macOS other software may conflict with Spine. For example, screen mirroring software or Finder "enhancements", such as Default Folder X, can prevent Spine from running. Also, Rescue Time may need to be closed when Spine is started.

Antivirus and anti-malware

Some antivirus or anti-malware software, such as Bit Defender, 360 Browser, or Comodo, may modify or delete Spine's files. This can cause Spine to fail to run completely, or fail at a later point. You'll need to disable such software or safelist Spine's folders. Spine's folders are:

Some antivirus software, such as Comodo, rudely continues to interfere with other programs running on your computer even after disabling it. If safelisting Spine or disabling the antivirus software doesn't work, the only solution may be to uninstall the misbehaving software.

Outdated launcher

One of the first things to check is that you are running the latest Spine launcher. To do that, go to your Spine license page which you received when you purchased Spine, then download and reinstall Spine. If you can't find your Spine license page you can use the license recovery page.

Networking

When you install Spine, you are actually installing the Spine launcher. When you run Spine, it needs to download the version of Spine you want to run. After that you can run Spine without a network connection.

Firewall

If you have a firewall on your router or other network hardware, or a software firewall that blocks Spine from reaching the server, then you'll need to disable the firewall or add rules to allow Spine's communication. Spine connects to *.esotericsoftware.com using ports 443 and 80.

Servers

Spine's servers are located in Japan, Europe, and the USA. If you are located in China or your internet connection to the servers is very slow, you may need to try multiple times, try again later, or use a VPN.

Spine automatically chooses the server with the best connection for you and if that fails it will also try every other server. Spine checks the best connection every few days, but you can force the check by running Spine from the command line using --ping. You can also force it to prefer a specific server using --server jp, --server eu, or --server us.

Proxy

If you require internet connections to use a proxy server, you'll need to start Spine with a special command to specify the proxy server.

Hosts file

Spine will be unable to run if your hosts file contains an entry that redirects network traffic for esotericsoftware.com. You'll see an error message about it in your spine.log file and you'll need to edit your hosts file to remove the entry:

Outdated audio and video drivers

Spine uses hardware accelerated audio and video (OpenAL and OpenGL). Any bugs in the drivers for your audio or video hardware can cause Spine to crash or be unable to run at all. Make sure you have the latest drivers by going to the manufacturer's website for both your audio and video hardware, then download and install the latest drivers provided.

Disable audio

If you don't need Spine's audio capabilities, you can disable Spine's use of the audio hardware by starting Spine with the --disable-audio command line parameter. We've had reports of some bad audio drivers for gaming laptops.

User files

Spine stores settings and other files in your user folder:

You can safely delete this entire folder and everything in it. However, you may want to first save some of the files:

• The backup subfolder is where Spine stores copies of your projects each time you save.
• The .json files are where Spine stores your settings. Deleting them resets Spine to the default settings.
• The hotkeys.txt file is where Spine stores the hotkeys to use for various actions. If you have customized this file, you probably want to keep a copy of it.
• The updates subfolder is where Spine stores downloaded updates. Deleting them will cause Spine to download the updates again.

Outdated Spine version

You can choose which version of Spine to run in Spine's settings. If Spine is crashing, you may want to try the latest update. Please note that if you save your projects with a newer version, older versions won't be able to open it.

To run the latest version, choose Latest in Spine's settings. If you can't get to the settings dialog, you can delete the version.txt file here:

If the file doesn't exist, then Spine will use the latest version. If the file does exist, Spine will use the version specified in the file.

You can also specify the version via the command line. First choose a version from the changelog, for example 3.7.94, then run Spine this way:

If you are having problems with the latest version, you can try going back to an older version (if you haven't yet saved your project with the newer version, or you get an older version of your project from your backups). We fix bugs very quickly, often within days (especially when users show us how to reproduce a problem!), but if you are having trouble with the latest version you may want to use an older version so you can be productive, rather than wait for a fix.

Still have problems?

If you have gone through the information above and you still have problems running Spine, please post on the forum or contact us.