ASIO Guard 2 Hiccups, Loud Stuttering Noise, Reboot Required

Spontaneous, loud stutter that starts with a jarring audio hiccup. Then reboot required to get rid of it.

A CPU demanding project that required 2048 buffers in 7.5, initially seemed stable in Cubase 8 at 512 buffer size.

But after a while, and/or some events I have yet to understand how to easily reproduce, ASIO Guard 2 breaks down into a loud, extended stutter that requires a reboot / relaunch to recover from.

It appears to happen spontaneously without any new instrument being added, etc. Simply on repeated playback.

It’s as if, suddenly, ASIO Guard decides it can’t handle the playback at that buffer size anymore. But changing to a higher (or lower) buffer size does not resolve the issue once it’s in this state. A reboot is required.

The loud sound it emits when it “breaks down” like this, is dangerous to ears and monitors as well as being extremely unsettling and jarring.

To fix it at moment, I need to turn off a jbridged plugin and turn on again. Everything comes back to work in a right way without reboot. But very frustrating…

Like me, have you some 32 bit plugin (or jbridged) on 64 bit Cubase version?

No 32-bit or jbridge for me here. All 64-bit.

The problem seems to go away if I set my audio interface buffer to 2048, even with ASIO Guard being on.

What’s weird is Cubase Pro 8 wouldn’t allow me to do a 2048 buffer when I first installed it. It gave me a message saying I needed to lower it.

But now it’s letting me.

Also, after some testing, a 512 buffer seemed to be the sweet spot. It was performing better for me than 2048 (and still does), but it’s just not stable, apparently.

I have a suspicion it’s some kind of multi-core “threading” issue, or something. Where, while its working, a CPU core will suddenly get reallocated. Something like that maybe.

Maybe it’s a particular plugin… Test it by disabling thru your plugin manager the Asio Guard for the single vst.

Jbridge doesn’t work stable. Stop using 32bit plugins in 64bit daw and your problems will be gone

Of course. But it’s enough to disable Asio Guard for jbridged plugins and it works without issues.

Good thought! I shall try this.