Can't open Sibleius 7 on New Macbook Air

[Fiddlehead]

Hi,
This is my first post on the forum. I have been a loyal Sibelius user for 25 years or so. However, after upgrading to a new Macbook pro (running Catalina 10.15) I've come to a screeching halt. I can't open my Sibelius 7 software. I get error messages like "There was an error initializing the licensing engine" (see attachments). I don't seem to be able to activate or authorize Sibelius on this machine even after updating my Avid account. Do they expect me to subscribe and pay yearly now? Why is it so hard to get support??

Please help. Thanks.

[MikeLyons]

This is NOT sibelius' problem. Apple decided to make Catalina incompatible with 32 bit applications. The authorisation software used by Sib 7 (Avid Licence control) is 32 bit (as is the VST library of Sib 7 sounds) and will NOT work with Catalina. I say again that this is NOT a Sibelius problem. If you were using a PC you would still be able to get the software to work, although Sib 7 is really quite old now (2011).

As to support, unless you kept up your annual support plan (and upgraded) it has long since expired.

You could try emailing ingrid.guce@avid.com or marianna.montague@avid.com to see if they can help you but, as I said, Sib 7 is NOT compatible with Catalina - and that is Apple's fault.

[Fiddlehead]

Mike, thank you so much! This is very helpful – even though it’s not the answer I was hoping for. So with a Mac running Catalina I’m back to square one and I would need to just purchase Sibelius over again?
Joel

[MikeLyons]

Yes. IIRC, Sib 7 itself has a 64 bit version, but the sound library installer and the Avid Sibelius installer are both incompatible with Catalina and any later Mac OS.

I would say buy the whole software new. Avid have recently (2020) stopped supporting the 'refreshing' of perpetual licenses, so you will have to start from a full version of Sibelius Ultimate. Do NOT go the subscription route - there have been endless issues reported of people losing weeks of use because of licensing failures. Also, don't be tempted to buy one of the cut-down versions of Sibelius and such installation would be a downgrade for you. The only version that has the same/better facilities as Sib 7 is Sib Ultimate.

[strmd]

Can't speak for Sibelius 7, but I wanted to report that I have successfully launched version 8.4.2 on Big Sur (Intel Mac), having used Apple's Migration Assistant to transfer the application from a Catalina install (where I did the same thing, but from Mojave). I haven't done extensive testing, but it appears to run quite smoothly.

So it might be worth making a clone or Time Machine backup of the old computer/OS and transferring the applications that way. This can also be done on a separate install (partition or APFS container) if one wants to experiment.

[andyg]

The official line is that only Sibelius 2020.9 is fully compatible with Big Sur.

8.x and earlier are described as 'not compatible'. Threads on the official Sibelius forum are reporting various issues, like non functioning video features, inability to input dynamics, lyrics etc.

[jazznichole]

I'm having the same problem -- I recently bought a new Macbook Pro and was shocked to learn that Sibelius 7 is "incompatible" with Catalina..... because it's been running just fine on Catalina on my old Macbook for ages. Surely there must be some sort of workaround to get it to run on Catalina, considering that I've been doing exactly that without realizing it was supposed to be a problem?

[MikeLyons]

I'm really sorry, but you were just 'lucky'. At some point you would have found an incompatibility or crashed your system.