Cisco Spark app won't launch

[David Parker]

After installing Spark and going through the initial email address verification, the Spark app imply won't launch. Nothing happens whatsoever when clicking the launcher. I called Cisco support but that wasn't helpful. Apparently the executable modifies a text file called sparklauncher.txt. Inside it there is a line "Spark executable beside launcher is backlisted". Support indicated that communication to the head end is blocked so the rest of the software isn't installed? They sent me a Network Requirements doc Network Requirements for Cisco Spark Services (... | Cisco Cloud Collaboration Help Central. But in checking that, there is nothing preventing communication outside. It seems to be a design flaw in Spark that there isn't more useful info upon failure to load. Any thoughts?

[GetFern]

Reporting we are having the same problem for multiple users. Uninstalling, reboot, reinstalling.

[elizabeth.lagrotteria]

Same here - multiple users unable to launch after upgrade to Windows Desktop Client 2.0.8206.0. Tried all steps listed here, same results. If we un-install and install 2.0.8040.0 it works fine until the auto-update.

[benjaminwatt]

I get the impression that there may be a multitude of reasons why Spark won't open, but we raised a TAC request to investigate why it was happening on some of our PCs.

In our case, believe it or not, it turned out to be the Wacom pen driver for the pen that came with the laptop. Installing the latest version from Wacom's site (rather than HP that provided the laptop & pen) allowed Spark to finally load.

I understand that certain graphics drivers can also cause this.

You should find a *.dmp crash file at C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\SparkMemoryDump.dmp which when opened with WinDbg and the .ecxr command entered should show if there was a driver that caused it and which.

In our case it started with:

Unable to load image C:\Windows\System32\ISD_Tablet.dll, Win32 error 0n2

ISD_Tablet.dll being the pen driver from Wacom.

[elizabeth.lagrotteria]

We actually discovered the issue was due to an ADS group policy that prevents .exe files from running in the APPData folder.

We were blocking .exe from running in AppData\Local\*\. However, we allowed .exe to run in AppData\Local\*\*\ so...

versions 2.0.8040.0 and below were executing from \AppData\Local\Programs\Cisco Spark - these worked.

Version 2.0.8206.0 is launched from AppData\Local\CiscoSparkLauncher - this was being blocked.

We enabled the policy and everything works fine.

[Donner_Kebab]

Worked for me!
You can also test this by simply stopping the ISD service and then starting Webex Teams (formerly known as Cisco Spark).