# Designer won't start

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** perspective\
**Created:** [March 13, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485 "2026-03-13T13:54:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ryan\_Deardorff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/ryan_deardorff/32/63815_2.png) [@Ryan\_Deardorff](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Ryan_Deardorff)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/1 "2026-03-13T13:54:00Z")

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I had several Designers open when I left last night, and overnight my machine installed updates and rebooted. When I tried to open a Designer, it got stuck loading Perspective:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/f/c/fcbd301d3d4c553519294589b2d9cb778153f04f.png)

I killed the process, closed the Launcher, went to the gateway page and downloaded the Designer installer, and ran it. Now, the Launcher itself is stuck on this screen:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/e/6/e63cecb706ff85e58994fafbd6608655f81f3b52.png)

Any ideas what to try next? I tried uninstalling from Windows, and got this:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/b/c/bcde079e667a61d441225483eff2286e7430bcf3.png)

I started looking for where those files might be, when suddenly the Launcher finally opened. But when I try opening a project, it’s right back to being stuck on loading Perspective…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/2 "2026-03-13T13:58:37Z")

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You could try deleting the `~/.ignition/cache` directory.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ryan\_Deardorff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/ryan_deardorff/32/63815_2.png) [@Ryan\_Deardorff](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Ryan_Deardorff)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/3 "2026-03-13T13:59:34Z")

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Where is that on Windows?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/4 "2026-03-13T13:59:59Z")

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`~` is your user home directory, so wherever that is.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/5 "2026-03-13T14:01:57Z")

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If that doesn't work, look at `~/.ignition/clientlauncher-data/designerlauncher.log`.

Somewhere in this file there will be a long command string on a line that starts with something like "Starting Java with the following parameters..."

You'll want to copy this long command and run it in a terminal and then share all the output.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ryan\_Deardorff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/ryan_deardorff/32/63815_2.png) [@Ryan\_Deardorff](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Ryan_Deardorff)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2026, 2:09pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/designer-wont-start/114485/6 "2026-03-13T14:09:07Z")

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That worked, thanks! It wouldn’t let me delete the folder until after I rebooted my machine, because something had a lock on it (though I couldn’t see any Java processes in the Task Manager).