Hi Dean, 

We are having the exact same issue as you are. We are also an accountancy practice using RDS and every time we try to go into an Employee Record on Sage Payroll we also get the “SBDDesktop.exe has stopped working” and it crashes out.

We did also install v29.02 in November which caused us the same issue. Our IT liaised with Sage and tried reinstalling the software and other steps none of which worked.

Annoying we were then told v29.02 was not even a compulsory update (having been told before that all payroll updates would become compulsory at some point!) so we did not even have to install it – in the end we reverted back to v29.01 (painfully – as v29.02 did not uninstall correctly either) and had to manually restore all our datasets which got everything to work again – this took hours of IT time and hours of our time.

So whatever was not working on the RDS was to do with the v29.02 update. (We did try installing it on a standalone PC which did work). 

We phoned Sage when v29.03 came out (realising it would be compulsory with the NI changes) and were told it was based on the v29.01 NOT the v29.02 so the issues should not arise as the only change would be the NI rate – hence our IT installed it over Christmas. 

Then when we came back and used it last week – we found it was throwing up the exact same error as before! 

Our IT also tried various actions including some from another post on this forum and I have posted their observations below in case there is anything in there that will help you or anyone else, but so far we do not have a fix. 

For now, we are forced to run our payrolls on a standalone computer and manually transfer datasets for backup purposes. 

Sage has also washed their hands of it with us, being told that they apparently do not support RDS servers! It is really disappointing to have these issues, we have used Sage Payroll for over 15 years. 

I’d be grateful if you would let me know the outcome if you do fix it, and we will do the same. 

Claire

Hi Dean, 

We are having the exact same issue as you are. We are also an accountancy practice using RDS and every time we try to go into an Employee Record on Sage Payroll we also get the “SBDDesktop.exe has stopped working” and it crashes out.

We did also install v29.02 in November which caused us the same issue. Our IT liaised with Sage and tried reinstalling the software and other steps none of which worked.

Annoying we were then told v29.02 was not even a compulsory update (having been told before that all payroll updates would become compulsory at some point!) so we did not even have to install it – in the end we reverted back to v29.01 (painfully – as v29.02 did not uninstall correctly either) and had to manually restore all our datasets which got everything to work again – this took hours of IT time and hours of our time.

So whatever was not working on the RDS was to do with the v29.02 update. (We did try installing it on a standalone PC which did work). 

We phoned Sage when v29.03 came out (realising it would be compulsory with the NI changes) and were told it was based on the v29.01 NOT the v29.02 so the issues should not arise as the only change would be the NI rate – hence our IT installed it over Christmas. 

Then when we came back and used it last week – we found it was throwing up the exact same error as before! 

Our IT also tried various actions including some from another post on this forum and I have posted their observations below in case there is anything in there that will help you or anyone else, but so far we do not have a fix. 

For now, we are forced to run our payrolls on a standalone computer and manually transfer datasets for backup purposes. 

Sage has also washed their hands of it with us, being told that they apparently do not support RDS servers! It is really disappointing to have these issues, we have used Sage Payroll for over 15 years. 

I’d be grateful if you would let me know the outcome if you do fix it, and we will do the same. 

Claire

Our IT have made the following observations whilst trying to fix this issue: 

Observation 1 – v29.03.485 issues not solved

Similar to others we are running Sage Payroll on an RDS (server 2016) which is fully up to date and running Sophos AV.

Sage Payroll version up to v29.01 installed and ran ok (but had the blank reCaptcha issue which we have now resolved see Observation 2)

In November we installed v29.02 – this initially worked ok when testing, but then when we tried to go into Employee Records payroll crashed out with the error “SBDDesktop.exe has stopped working”. 

We tried reinstalling the update on Sage’s advice – this did not solve the issue. 

Sage were not able to provide any solution to this – we were told v29.02 was not even compulsory (although we had not been told this previously!) so they suggested we reinstall v29.01 which worked. 

We did this – painfully – as the Sage uninstaller did not correctly uninstall v29.02. We contacted Sage again and were given some specific folders to delete which were not deleted with the uninstaller! 

Finally we had v29.01 reinstalled and then had to manually restore all of the datasets (as the originals had all be updated to v29.02). This took days to sort out. 

In December when v29.03 was released we were assured by Sage that v29.03.485 was based on v29.01 with the only change being the NI rate - hence they suggested that there would be no repeat of the v29.02 issue above. 

However, following installation of v29.03.485 this had the exact same error “SBDDesktop.exe has stopped working” when going into Employee Records and crashed the Sage Payroll. 

So v29.03.485 is unusable on the RDS. 

We also tried running a payroll as Administrator after the full reinstall – which did not work. 

As per Observation 2, we also set up an “Everyone” profile which was given full permissions for C:\Program Files (x86)\Sage Payroll\  - this also did not rectify the issue. 

Observation 2 – reCAPTCHA verification issue

Using a brand-new Windows 10 installation, all updates done, standalone desktop PC (not server, RDS - just absolutely standard isolated machine)

We installed Sage Payroll v29.03.485

The payroll software itself works and does not throw up the SBDDesktop.exe error when accessing the Employee Records that occurs on the RDS. 

However, the reCAPTCHA  screen that comes up when logging in is blank with only a “Skip” button – there is no option to do the reCAPTCHA verification. 

We followed the guidance on this link which did then bring up the reCAPTCHA verification:

https://gb-kb.sage.com/portal/app/portlets/results/viewsolution.jsp?solutionid=221220093432370&hypermediatext=null 

However to make this work the security profile “Everybody” must have “Full Permissions” for the C:\Program Files (x86)\Sage Payroll\ folder.

This then allowed the Webview2Loader.dll to run in the manually created folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Sage Payroll\SBDDesktop.exe.WebView2

On logging into a client dataset the reCAPTCHA verification then does appear and works. 

However - this clean, brand-new windows 10 installation does not have “Everybody” as an existing profile and this had to be manually added as a security profile for this specific Sage function to work. 

This was also the case on the RDS and the reCAPTCHA now works on that installation also – but the SBDDesktop.exe error has not been solved. 

Doesn’t this indicate a sage permissions issue rather than our “environment” issues?!