For those having issues running Armory v0.96.5 after upgrading Bitcoin Core from v27 to v28 or v29 here are some tips:

When running Armory v0.96.5, Armory will work, with Bitcoin Core v27 or 27.2 present, but not running.

If you upgrade Bitcoin core to v28 v28.1 or v29, but load Armory on its own, you can get an error in Armory saying: 

  "Armory failed to spawn the DB!
  Continuing operations in offline mode instead.
  Refer to the dbLog.txt for more information."

I found the simple solution was to run Bitcoin Core, and keep it running, before starting Armory.

This way you can upgrade Bitcoin Core v28, v28.1 or v29.

Note that I did NOT have to resort to "Add a blocksxor=0 line to bitcoin.conf file or use it as a command line arg: --blocksxor=0".

I decided to revert back to v27.2, so I can run Armory on its own, which I feel is a safer option, however I am putting this information out there for those confident in running Armory v0.96.5 with the latest v29 of Bitcoin Core.

I run Windows 11 (64bit) on a PC.

Hope this helps.