When I try opening the MikTex console I get an error window saying "MiKTeX Console is already running". I tried closing literally every program, and I still get it. I opened Task Manager to see if it showed up there, but no. I tried restarting my laptop. I tried running the console as an administrator, but I get the same message. Any help? Thank you.
[Tex/LaTex] Error: MikTex console already running
miktex
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Well, it seems that your installation of MiKTeX has problems. I do not use Windows 10, but I had an similar problem with Windows 8.1.
I got from time to time error messaged from windows 8 that an application crash happend. Please check your system panel for error messages and report them to the MiKTeX support.
At last I got rid of this problem by doing the following things:
- uninstall MiKTeX and editors
- Reboot windows
- I forced an update of windows
- Reboot windows
- Download the current installer for complete MiKTeX
- Install MiKTeX. Please make sure, that the installation is complete. It could happen, that the downloading and installing of MiKTeX can be interrupted by an unreachable download server (one student of mine had to restart the MikTeX installer for 11 times!).
- Reboot windows
- Run the package manager of MiKTeX (you have to do that, the installer does not always install the current versions of packages. The package manager checks that and show you all packages with newer versions available.
- Reboot windows. Check if you got unusual windows errors with the system panal.
- Test MiKTeX with commandline and compile your
HelloWorld.texwithpdflatex HelloWorld.tex. Check thelogfile for errors or warnings. There should be none of them. - Download the installer for your prefered editor and install it. Check that the installation is complete. If you need to configure the editor do it.
- Reboot windows to make sure the new program can work properly.
- Test your editor compiling
HelloWorld.tex. Check thelogfile again. There should be no warnings or error messages.
I ask you to do the reboots to be sure windows had finished the installing and updating MiKTeX. All my students following this advice have no problems running MiKTeX.
It seems that windows needs the reboots to be able to finish the installation process. If you omit the reboot it can be that the installing is not finished and that results in variing error situations.
Maybe you have to go to a specific fold in the operational system and delete the file Miktex console.lock. In w10 the path should be in C:/Users/your name/miktex-console.lock. This solve my same problem.
Best Answer
When I was in this situation, I found that MiKTeX had generated a file named miktex-console.lock in my user folder (C:\Users\MyUsername for Windows users). Deleting the file permitted the application to run.
It appears that the MiKTeX console, for whatever ridiculous reason, does not simply check for other instances of the miktex-console.exe process, and instead generates this "miktex-console.lock" file when launched. Deleting the offending file whenever it is created lets you run as many MiKTeX console instances as you like.
This is horrifically bad design.