Audio drop out error message

However, I very much see your overall point that if no-one else is seeing this then it is clearly something particular to my system, and I need to work through the possible causes. I have to say though, I am a certainly confused about it all!

As a longtime Cubase user I’ve dealt more then one occasion this sort of trouble, it won’t help but I really can relate to your problems. After having so much trouble I regulary had to completely build my systems from ground, including installing everything. This could take up to 2 days before getting at the point that I could make music again.
Ooh yeah and for some system my memory was bad, I also had a few systems where the harddrives where having bad sectors. These sectors only became a problem when accesing certian files (I wonder how I troubleshooted this one).

In my experience the only thing what will help, is to do a systematic exclusion of all sorts of problems, the first I would suggest is to reinstall your system including OS (best is to first back it up) to a basic system (no 3rd party add-ons), just OS en Cubase, then first test it good.

If you’re on windows 8 you can easily see the disks troughput in taskmanager/performance tab, I think windows 7 has the source monitor from within the taskmanager. If your up to it you can use “Perfmon.exe”, this standard windows tool can measure alsmost everything in your system, however interpreting the performnace data has it challenges.

Helpful pointers, thanks. I’ll certainly check some of the easy things, like Prefs as Grim mentions. I’m not keen on doing a rebuild for the obvious reasons, but, yes, that may become inevitable. I’ve only had to do that once, when I moved for XP to 7 and I remember it being quite a chore!

Having said that, my pc is now 8 years old (where did that time go?) and although I have upgraded a few parts (RAM etc) maybe this is telling me to get a new one! Anyway, I’ll check everything mentioned…and more…and let you know if I discover a simple obvious fault.

Thanks again to all for the help, all comments and advice much appreciated!

These computer issues drive us musicians nuts! Mind you, I still have my old reel-to-reel :wink:

Is the auto hitpoint detection on in C8 and not in C7 ?

An interesting thought - but in fact the Auto Hitpoint Detection is checked on in both C7.5 and C8. In fact, I’ve now checked through all of the Preferences and, as I would have expected, they are the same in C8 as they were in C7.5.

FWIW I have recently started getting the “Audio dropout detected…” while running my Cubase Artist 7.5. Don’t think anything has changed in my computer setup, yet this just started 4 days ago…

Interesting - though of course it may not be related to the issues I have.

Presumably you are sure that nothing has changed in your setup or vst’s or size of projects, etc?

I’m having same issue here.
Nothing has been changed but the new version of cubase, and I’m getting “recording error: audio dropout detected” when I record an audio track.

It never happend in C7 or 7.5, so I’m also pretty sure it’s C8 issue.

There’s nothing new that cubase always has new bugs and errors for every updates, but it’s still a shame. :frowning:

Am noticing same issue here on 8.010. I turned off ASIO guard altogether and that seems to have solved it so far. There seem to be problems with ASIO guard in this version. I was getting a few pops as well before I turned it off.

I too am having this problem unfortunately. And it seems it’s nearly the same situation as the OP, except I don’t get the error message on my system when switching windows (I’m Mac OS 10.8.5, 32 GB RAM, C 8.0.10, all 64bit). I’m just trying to record an audio snipet from Midi (Kontakt in VST, going out to PT, and then coming back into Cubase) and it simply WILL NOT record. I’ve tried different buffer sizes, ASIO guard ON/OFF, etc. I originally posted something about this error message a few days ago and am glad I’m not the only one. I never had this problem in C7 or 6.5 either…

I have this problem as well. Just updated to 8 Pro. New project: Superior Drummer as VST. Tried to record audio on first track. Audio dropout message. Never happened with 6.5 running 30+ tracks, 8 hardware inserts, tons of VST’s, all at 284 buffer size. Same computer. Doesn’t happen with Pro Tools 11 either.

Something’s wrong.

Hi,
Have you tried having C8 rebuild it’s preferences? Fixed all sorts of things for me. And you could clone the system drive onto an SSD to smooth out overall performance.

Good luck,
Benji

Not sure if it helps for you, but on one of my laptops, my network and sound cards cause this issue. I disable ALL on-board network devices, including wireless & bluetooth, and ALL unused playback/record sound devices (through control panel) & the drop outs completely go away. Not sure why, but it works, and I never use these while recording anyway…I just re-enable them later if I need them.

Since I put in the original post I have been doing a lot of checking. To cut a long story short I think the audio dropouts were due to Pianoteq. I had installed it earlier but had not used it. I never considered it may be the problem as obviously it uses no RAM, however I have since learned that it can be processor-hungry. There has been a more recent update that lessens the processor utilisation, and I think that may be working better.

In any event, it seems that the problem - in my case anyway - may be due to processor limitations. However, I’m not yet totally sure and I hope I am not doing Pianoteq (which I love) a disservice!

I contacted Steinberg about the audio dropouts and they advised me to go to devices-> device setup and turn “asio guard” off and check “use Steinberg power scheme”.

That stopped my dropouts.

There are so many posts about this, that I do not know where to comment. In my case, faced with the same problems, I decided to uninstall all of Cubase and start with a clean C8. When I decided to used CC Cleaner FREE to uninstall, I noticed there was also a “repair” option.
With nothing to lose (since I was planning to uninstall) I chose it. It took a couple of minutes doing “something”, and suddenly mi Cubase 8.0.10 started working with no glitches at all!
When some problem reappeared a few days later, I did this “repair” again and since then (fingers crossed!!) all is working well again.
There is obviously something complicated going on, but I think it is not so much a Cubase failing, but, rather, a problem of interaction between so many different OS settings, plugins, etc.

I also had the same issue with Cubase 8. I’ve been using Cubase for many years, often recording lengthy band sets, and though I’ve had occasional sonic glitches, Cubase would continue recording. But with the new Cubase 8, it would just stop and miss the rest of the set – most annoying,
OK, so I should resolve the cause of the glitches, but that’s a different issue. I had suspected the new ASIO Guard features, and I expect that disabling ASIO Guard will solve my problem.
However, though I recognize it’s purpose and value, I’m reluctant to use the “Steinberg power scheme” on my laptop because it makes the fan run at (noisy) full speed.
BTW – the glitches seem to be mostly due to network operations. Disconnecting or disabling (using Device Manager) the network seems to solve the problem on my studio (i5 mid-tower) system, on my VAIO laptop I also have to disable Wi-Fi and the “Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method battery”. (Why the battery? Your guess is as good as mine.)
Unfortunately, to verify that ASIO Guard is the culprit, I’ll have to bring back the glitches and test the system yet again. Later …

I’ve started to record with Cubase LE, suffering the same issue. In my case, the problem’s disappeared after deactivating the check “Activate Multi Processing”.

I hope it helps

Same with me, the dropouts have only just started after several weeks of no dropout use. very annoying only happens while recording audio. (Cubase artist 8)

I have the same problem, first with the message “audio drop out detected” I was told to unclick the asio guard, which solved the recording stopping but it still jumps and skips beats. I am at my wits end. All I want to do is record mucic but all I seem to be doing is trying to solve problems for Steinberg. What to do???

Hi every body

i don’t know if this helps or i’m just repeating what other people say but i had this problem

I thought of the recording levels and changed the buffer size with the sound card from 192 Hz 258 samples to 96hz 128 samples and don’t know if this helps but it worked for me.

devices > devices at bottom>
SOUND CARD CONTROL PANEL

lower buffer size down to lower below 96hz.

i found a lot of producers even work at 48hz so may not be problem.


regards