@WhyB

In addition to @SP.'s request, it would help if we know more about your computer specification, see this topic for what is required and please quote processor and graphics card make/model in full, and also what monitor/screen resolution(s) you are working with if this is a laptop.

The amount of free space on the hard drive(s) you have.

Was there any error dialog that popped up when the crash occurred, if so what was the message?
 
Are the graphics card/integrated GPU drivers up to date?
 

John EB
Forum Moderator

Experiencing the same issues. No other audio software causes me issues like this. Despite clean uninstalls and reinstalls, SF15 no longer launches. I just get a pop up that says “stopped working” and a small string of crash data.

My biggest complaint is that MAGIX appears to have absolutely no support system and their web site is a buggy mess that has me feeling like I need to be a hacker just to navigate through it. An example; Soundforge 15 fails to work on Windows 11 now. Waited almost a month, with hope, for a reply from support after sending crash data. They never answer. So, I thought I would upgrade to 17 or 18. First of all, finding the upgrade page is an Easter egg hunt. Once found, clicking the upgrade purchase button does nothing. The site just hangs. I have tried on multiple devices without luck. (Why did I bother? Frustration I figured an upgrade might solve the problem. But, they won’t even let me PAY for a solution.)

I really relied on SF for my work. The lack of support is so bothersome. At this point, I’ll have to find another go-to for my mastering. (Probably WaveLab. But, suggestions are welcome.)

@John-Murray8461

It seems that the Magix servers have been experiencing "problems", especially today, March 14th. The forum is now "behaving properly" so it might be worth you trying again to complete your purchase?

Jeff
Forum Moderator

Yep, not there, so say they...

Just did this about 5 minutes ago!

Hi @mmcswnavy24, You should be able to purchase SF 17 or 18 here which seems to be working,. at least from my location in USA. . or at least try the free 30-day trial version.
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/sound-forge-pro/

So exhausted from this. SF 15 stopped working. I finally was able to download a test copy of the only SoundForge they have available for testing (18pro). It worked. I thought, this indicates that SF15 no longer works on windows 11 so I'll upgrade.
I upgraded to SF 17 and now this new version doesn't work either. Same crash and no hope for assistance from support.
I put in for a refund but I don't have much confidence that Magix will get back to me.So, I threw some cash down the toilet for crash-ware.

@John-Murray8461

Hi

The issues you are having may be Windows 11 related, if you logon to the computer with a Microsoft account. By default this installs and activates OneDrive, your Documents folder is moved to the OneDrive cloud storage.

This can affect programs such as Sound Forge which read/write temporary files to the computer disc/ssd drive, with OneDrive active this can introduce delays while the files are written to and read from OneDrive. It also means you must always be connected to the Internet to access any files stored in your Documents folder when using SF and other programs.

As a minimum uploading to OneDrive must be disabled for the Sound Forge folder, and, if you have one the Magix folder in the Documents folder - see this article on how to do this.

If you do not need OneDrive, I would suggest you to disable it completely, the linked to article above has a link on how to do this.

If you want to uninstall OneDrive, you do so at your own risk and do ensure you have local backups of all documents/files etc before disconnecting/disabling OneDrive, you should still be able to access them through a web browser.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

John EB, thanks for the response.
an interesting idea. If this is the case (one drive) I wonder why it would have impacted SF15 suddenly after years and SF 17 as well but not the test version of SF 18 pro.
I also wonder if it is possible to change the directories for SF 17 so it would t be impacted, if that is indeed the problem.
I will try out your suggestion with hopes and jump back into this forum with results.
Thanks much for taking the time to offer a suggestion.
J

@John-Murray8461 Microsoft delivered some broken Windows updates over the last couple of weeks. This includes broken Visual C++ Redistributables and broken MIDI 2.0 integration. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the cause of Sound Forge no longer working. You could try to reinstall or repair the distributables from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist

The same problem prevented Magix Vegas from starting.

I'm still on Windows 11 23H2 and don't plan to update Windows to a newer version until all these massive bugs in 25H2 are resolved.

John EB and SP; Thank you both for the suggestions,which I have trried. Unfortunately, nothing has worked.

What is more dissapointing than the software not working is Magix's lack of support and hiding behind bots that close cases without any attention. It tells me that they really don't care about customer retention, return business or backing up their products with any amount of pride.
In contrast, Steinberg returns requests quickly, polietly and does a fair amoumt of qualifying related to an issue in order to offer a a solution. I guess I'll dive deep into learning WaveLab and see where it takes me.
Cheers and, sincerely, thanks again.

JM

@John-Murray8461 We recently found out, that Magix support accumulated thousands of support tickets over the summer 2025, during their restructuring process. In February 2026 there were still over 2000 tickets open. I had to wait three months until I got a response to my ticket and that was only a lucky coincidence. They simply reduced their number of staff members too fast and they can't keep up with the amount of support tickets.