And the culprit was...

… Cubase 6 ! I posted a thread nearly 2 weeks ago (Something scary happened yesterday... - Cubase - Steinberg Forums) about C6 crashing with a horrrible sustained noise. Since, it appeared that Alchemy was involved in the issue. So, I posted a thread at the appropriate place : http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=329462 to seek a solution. This one deserves a reading…

Following Andy’s suggestions, it appears that, once again, the Cubase files configuration management was the problem. So, a simple question :

[rant mode ON]

how on earth can a labelled ‘professional’ product show such weaknesses about its own configuration management ?

‘Got a problem ? trash your preferences !’ seems the ultimate solution for most of Cubase pitfalls. I expect something more consistent as no previous crash warned me about such a problem. The question is : how essential files like these can be so easily corrupted without warning ? ever heard about a read only access to them, Steiny ? :unamused:
I’ve been for two weeks looking at every solutions available including the replacement of my audio interface…

By the way, Steiny could learn a lot about the quick help provided by Andy : the so called ‘improved interaction with users’ isn’t up to this : I’m still waiting here for a useful answer to my problem and it took only half an hour for Camel Audio to put me on the right track…

[rant mode OFF]

I just expect for Cubase 7 a more consistent way of managing the configuration related files, period. This with, again, a decent windows management an a streamlined presets handling.

I expect this for Cubase 6.5. And drag and drop to 3rd party plugins. And a Mediabay that doesn’t interrupt my workflow.

Sometimes you have to ask. “Why is it just me?”

Just find a local computer technician, preferably who’s experienced with Cubase to give your system the once over.
Why?
Because you’ll never fix those problems from here if they’re systems related.
PS: Don’t tell the forum you’re a professional if you haven’t contacted Steinberg support, or failing that, written a formal letter of complaint outlining your problems to the company because anyone can tell the forum anything they want and just rant away.
The reason I ask this? Not to save me time on a pointless excercise to be sure but to save YOU from what is likely to be a pointless excercise.

Conman, sorry to say, but :

  1. I never asked myself ‘Wht is it just me ?’. Not being a ‘professional’ doesn’t prevent me to know a few things about how DAW are supposed to work. And it seems to me that the ‘Trash your preferneces’ advice has been stated countless time here and there when Cubase is involved, whatever the problem is. Is this normal for a professional dedicated tool ?

  2. It is NOT system related : read carefully all the threads involved, please… Thanks.

Don’t pay too much attention to Conman :wink: He jumps on every thread and insists there’s some sort of hardware or OS problem that’s causing the poor OP’s woes and somehow makes it your fault for experiencing a Cubase bug.

I don’t jump on threads. I advise posters that because thousands of systems WORK quite happily with Cubase that it’s unreasonable to suppose that it has nothing to do with your own system and is ALL the sofware’s fault. I mention it so it can be at least taken on board. Anti-product greifing is useless.
If you can’t even have that mentioned without getting all twisty knickery then the thread will just be laughed at. At least I’m taking you seriously enough to answer with a coherent strategy at all.

Only here, when I try to get near the TRUTH do I find posters get all ratty and start getting personal. I don’t say ANYTHING about anyone else (at least before they have had a go at me). That’s because I’m not a snidey creep who thinks nobody else is allowed an opinion.
PM me in about a decade when it all “gets better”. :mrgreen:

Some seem to be convinced, that software need not be stable, if system has weaknesses. But the fact is that software can be made stable even within imperfect system. Like, imagine in car industry, you drive on the road, and your side mirror falls off - guys like Conman will try to convince you, that it is not car’s problem, but it is the road: “probably the road was not prefectly smooth, there were bumps on the road, there is your problem. Don’t blame the car, blame the bumps on the road!”
Another diamond would be, “yes, we acknowledge problem. It will be fixed in the next year model of the car. Just upgrade your experience to the newest model, and you will no longer have problems with your existing one” …

If other software can work just fine on Windows or Mac machine, then Cubase should too. If Steinberg is unable to make such software, ehm…, if car’s side mirrors keep falling off, well, then maybe the company should think about stop selling cars, and move to potato business or something.

To support what sonicstate has just written…

I am often looking at different forums of other hosts to make my mind about the general evolution of the DAW market and get hints about possible evolutions in a more or less near future.

What I notice is that after looking at Reaper, Sonat, Logic, ProYools, Podium (and so on…) forums, the ‘Trash your preferences’ statement is very seldom used. So, the preference and configuration management is a specific Cubase problem and, once again, it needs a fix. And again, sorry Conman, but this has NOTHING to do with a system configuration…

My suggestions (beside Howling Ulf one : [Feature Request] Better than just "trash the prefs"? - Steinberg Lounge - Steinberg Forums, if it is not easy to implement) :

  1. at the start of Cubase, an immediate automatic preferences files backup should be performed.
  2. During Cubase use not involving preferences or configuration changes these files should be closed or accessed only in a ‘read only’ way.
  3. If a problem occurs, the .log file (which is normally created) should warn Cubase and make it suggest to the user that the preferences files could have been corrupted and ask if it should make a replacement from the previous backup.

Don’t think it would be so difficult to do. Let’s see if there is an answer from Steiny about this…

Cubic, this is not aimed at you or your last input. Others seem to have hijacked the thread to pick a fight with me for some reason. We may disagree as to the cause but I have no problem with that.

I don’t try and convince anyone of anything. I just input another option to consider when I see only one option being mooted as the cause.
NEVER do I say you have to do anything.

Why anyone has to comment at all is quite beyond me unless someone is trying to pick a fight that no-one can win. Stupendously stupid that one, if you ask me.
I also don’t criticise anyone for their opinions or conhecture. I only offer my own. I am also prepared to be wrong when I am presented with sufficient information, which, like here, is all too rare.

Obviously my comments are very dangerous to some which is more a comment on their state of mind than mine. I don’t tell anyone to shut up or comment on their input or insult anyone as I leave all that to snidy creeps who lurk in the background helping no-one.

So, to make you happy.

YES, IT’S OBVIOUSLY A CUBASE FAULT AND THEY SHOULD JOLLY WELL FIX IT. OK!

See? Job done. They’ll fix it tomorrow. And we’ll all be the WINNERs. :mrgreen:

Trash pref’s is a funny one but my OPINION is it’s unlikely to be connected to this.

Speaking as a guy that has done a lot of IT support, the reason Steinberg tell you to delete your preferences is that it immediately rules out some stupid setting you have managed to put on by accident or unexpected consequence. Thereby ridding yourself of 60% of your support calls immediately.

I can see that.
If I said that I’d be snided to death. :mrgreen:

Ahh yes email, never the best way to communicate, even (especially) when you’re telling it like it is… :laughing:

And especially when they think they know it ALL. But.
They can’t get Cubase to work.
And everyone else can. :mrgreen:

The car does only 20mpg but the factory says 40mpg. So it’s the factory’s fault, right?
It’s not the racing starts from the lights and driving in the wrong gear or always 10mph over the limit or overloading.
Must be the maker’s fault… :laughing: So don’t go to the workshop to get laughed at go complaining to the forum and pretend you’re a car expert. :laughing: :laughing:

Edit: nvm. Not worth it. I hope you help people find and fix all their problems. I’m sure it’s the OP’s fault that his VST cache was corrupted. :frowning:

Considering the thousands that use Cubase without corrupted VST caches you do have to wonder. I try to fix all the problems I can but sometimes there is some resistance, as in “it can’t be me.”

The issue I have with Steinberg is that they do make it all look as though it’s so easy. They should really say what is entailed in running the program and what equipment you should obtain for a clean performance.
And not just for new users apparently.

I suppose it may call for a sticky that checklists: Components, build (if DIY), installation of OS and programs, installation of Cubase.
To be fair they say some of this in the “Get Started” but for a beginner it’s not really compelling. Diving in too soon causes all sorts of niggles but it’s understandable.

Conwoman wrote

And especially when they think they know it ALL. But.
They can’t get Cubase to work.
And everyone else can. > :mrgreen:

I don’t know anyone like “they”. Are you a bit delusional Conman? Do you think this forum is like the old one, full of crack-happy users? I sincerely wish you would stop with your half-baked interventions and assumptions that anyone who posts on this forum is a “they”.

Seriously - why don’t you f*ck off? :imp:

Let me take a step back and explain a few things. As I mentioned on the thread of mine where I experienced corrupted projects and you insisted that I had bad RAM (I let this get the better of me: Someone Is Wrong On The Internet and ran RAM tests for 2 days to prove that wasn’t the case), I have a degree in computer science from an Ivy League university and work at a major consumer hardware/software/services company managing software development for a product that ships to tens of millions of customers worldwide.

I also want to say that I love Cubase and if you follow me you’ll know that I talk it up when appropropriate on other forums (since I’m not at all anonymous like some folks who post here–you can find out everything I’ve said on the web, KVR, Gearslutz, etc. by just googling for my signature and lights or lights fade low and listen to my music at my website or follow me on facebook right from my sig). But here is where we ask for help about our Cubase problems.

So, as I was saying, my personal experience from shipping consumer hardware, software, and services–both closed and open platforms–is that you have bugs. Everyone has bugs. Here’s an example–One product I work on is a closed system of hardware, software, and services. Nothing runs on it but software we certify. It’s very sophisticated and an amazing product. There are millions of them all over the world. People love them. Occasionally some people have problems with them. They encounter bugs. Our bugs. We know because every crash results in an error report that gets automatically uploaded to our service. Some of these crashes we fix. Others we don’t. Why? Because some bugs only affect maybe 1,000 users out of tens of millions. Does that mean they aren’t bugs? No. Does that mean that they configured the system wrong? Impossible: we built it and they can’t change it. So why do just one thousand users experience a particular crash? Because they exercise code paths that others don’t.

Now apply that background to Cubase–which is more of an open platform running on an open configuration. And worse, VST is an open in-proc architecture, meaning that uncertified 3rd party DLLs are loaded in the same process as Cubase. As far as I can tell from using the last 2 versions of Cubase, Steinberg has no automatic crash reporting system of any kind. So not only does Conman have no idea how many people are running Cubase with no problems, neither does Steinberg. When a project or a data file becomes corrupt is it likely that this is a result of a bug either in Cubase or a VST? Yes. (Note that it’s inexcusable for a VST bug, even one that causes a crash, to corrupt a project but it seems to happen regularly). Is it possible that it’s the result of faulty hardware or a bad system configuration, yes… but it’s far, far less likely. Keep in mind that there is error checking built into modern systems and even into the firmware of HDDs and failing hardware would result in everything else on the system crashing too.

So I’m happy to hear about Conman’s software development experience or where he got his degree in compsci or even a list of posts where people actually confirmed that he helped them find bad RAM or a faulty hard disk. But until I see any data, I’m going with my 15 years of experience in the hardware, software, and services industry that says that a corrupt project or prefs file is unlikely the culprit of a bad PC.

Now we’re all here because we think Cubase is the best DAW on the market… or we’d be at the Logic or ProTools forums. Every product has bugs. The reason we’re here is to either get help or help others–in a PRODUCTIVE manner that will result in the problems being resolved.

The reason people get tired of Conman is that he spreads FUD on problems and it’s enough to derail the conversation and the problem doesn’t get fixed or even acknowledged due to all the confusion. That’s NOT helpful. That’s exactly wha happened here. It happened the last time I had a problem. It’s not why are here.

Don’t have the time to develop presently (I’m going to work), but will do this evening. Thanks to Lights and Thermionic, though… :wink:

+1

That’s the most crack happy reply I’ve seen so far. And you are an expert on what exactly?
Crashing Cubase? :mrgreen: Ah! Get it now. You really do drive like that and think the car’s to blame for the low fuel consumption. Eh? :mrgreen:

Seriously creeps don’t have to be that afraid of me that you jump on all my posts. Though I must be telling you the truth that you don’t want to hear.
“They” because I don’t make personal and insulting remarks about anyone else. And there are other people who know what I know. That Cubase crashes are mostly operator error and bugs don’t actually crash the program that often just modules inside the programs don’t work as they should. They are posting in greater numbers now so even if I “Eff off” you’ll still embarras yourselves reading answers that tell it like it is.

Learn some manners. Otherwise some of you may disappear. The mods can see who’s being personal and who isn’t. Not from me. Other posters are noticing your rudeness too.
So please. Behave children.