Animate crashes on startup on Win

Question

Hi, I’ve been trying for years to install and run the latest versions of Adobe Animate, but the last version that actually opens for me is Animate 2020. Any newer version crashes right at startup: it initializes fonts, then gets stuck on “Loading document templates…” before showing Sorry, an error occurred and closing. What’s strange is that every other Adobe app works perfectly on my system, including Premiere Pro and After Effects. I’ve already tried many different fixes but nothing has worked so far. I uploaded the crashreport.

leonardo_5016 · Accepted Answer

Great news — after 4 years, the latest Adobe Animate finally works on my PC. The crash was happening right after “Initializing fonts,” at “Loading document templates,” and it turned out to be tied to the ZXPSignLib-minimal.dll module.

What worked:

Copied ZXPSignLib-minimal.dll from a stable Animate 2020 install into the 2024 install folder : C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Animate <version>\ZXPSignLib-minimal.dll, then relaunched — success. It might also work the other way around: if a newer version runs but an older one crashes, try copying ZXPSignLib-minimal.dll from the working new install into the older install’s folder.
This Reddit thread pointed in the right direction: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adobe/comments/12h6a9q/adobe_animate_and_zxpsignlibminimaldll/

Sharing in case it helps others stuck on the splash screen crash at “Loading document templates” caused by ZXPSignLib-minimal.dll because I know that is a common issue.

kglad · Answer

you probably have corrupted preferences. have you tried installing a whole number new version and not using older preferrences?

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