Chronic crashes

Cubase
1

Before getting into why I’ve posted this:

This suggested discussion is not for mindless rants but so as to help both users and Steinberg to get a good sense of the overall state of support from the p.o.v. of users. I understand frustration to the point of, uh, rage… but let’s keep it civil. :sunglasses:

It may also be useful to include some system specs if so desired.

I’ve been using Cubase since SX - now at v.11 - so as with many who have been loyal customers for as long or longer than I, we’ve witnessed Steinberg going through corporate restructuring/being bought out and at one point, telephone support disappear for good.

I’ve also read way too many posting of complaints about how slow and/or unresponsive support has been over the years. I’m sure there are exceptions and good experiences too.

But frankly, I’m hesitant to send anything in (right now I’m having chronic crashes of my v.11 - while v.6 works fine). I don’t want to wait weeks for a response or solution. I live on a fixed disability income and shelling out money to upgrade hardware and v.6-to-v.11 is not easy, but had to do it.

As closing sys specs show, I’m not a high ender, just a guy with a mid level computer.

So this posting/query is both selfish and hopefully of community service value.
Thanks.

Win 10 64 bit Home
MSI Performance B450 Gaming Plus mobo
Ryzen 5 1600 CPU (6 actual cores, no overclocking)
Crucial 3200 Mhz DDR4 2 x 16 Gb - XMP
Dual 27" Samsung Monitors
OS on Samsung Pro 850 SSD + 4 Other Mechanical HDDs (all SATA, non-RAID)
nVidia GT 710 2 Gb. DDR3 Video Card
Behringer USB + MIDI Audio Interface

2

Hi,

If you have crashes, please share the DMP files.

Win: Documents/Steinberg/Crash Dumps

As you have NVIDIA graphic card, which brings some troubles, please try this:

  • Download the latest Studio driver version from here.
  • Disconnect the computer from Internet to make sure Windows will not download and install own graphic driver.
  • Uninstall the NVIDIA driver.
  • Restart computer.
  • Start the NVIDIA driver installation (as administrator).
  • Don’t install the whole package, use the Custom (Advanced) settings.
  • Disable everything (don’t install NVIDIA Experience, PhysX, etc.), keep just the video driver enabled.
  • Connect your computer to the internet.
3

Hello,

Thank you for the suggestion even though I already had that last legacy driver version installed - for now it seems to have worked to stop the crashes.

The DMP files and Events showed that they were all due to Windows “/System32 wdmaud.drv.” I deleted it a couple of times because it may have been corrupted its folder, and ran SFC Scannow to have Windows replace it,

But that only worked temporarily.

Perhaps the nVidia audio driver that I had included in my driver install before doing what you suggested was somehow corrupting it.

We shall see… :slight_smile:

4

Hello!

I’d also recently (hopefully past tense :slight_smile: ) been suffering chronic crashes. And while I do think it’s worth sending the dumps to Cubase, even at the very least to let them know its not okay. The support… is, unfortunately… abysmal.

I’ll embarrass myself a bit here with one story. Have crashes, send dump to support, support comes back with a one-liner about how it is a problem with Kontakt and to contact native instruments. I do, and good guy Philipp gave me tons of troubleshooting steps for… Cubase. One of the things they suggested was checking memory. My problematic project was using all of the RAM on my box. This is mostly me being stupid with bad project management and I still facepalm about this.

The best lesson I learned from good guy Phillip at NI was to build a history and to track all of the crashes. What were you doing, what projects, when, and etc. This was immensely helpful for me in identifying problematic workflows or plugins (just being told to disable plugins is less than helpful, ill turn off the power too, that will fix my cubase crashes).

Some other things I’ve done and would recommend to anyone have generic problems. Gonna note, if you have a history, its really easy to see if anything helps or makes it worse. Super important.

  • Run a system memory check (i hate bad ram problems)

  • Backup / Reset Cubase Preferences / Settings (safe mode dialog)

  • I would experiment with settings on ASIO driver page

  • Run as administrator (plugins / vst sample files with odd file permissions)

  • Save a new project file or backup project (can’t tell you how often after a crash, my project gets saved by backing it up or saving it to a new file)

  • Update everything (Cubase, Kontakt, Drivers, Windows, plugins and etc)

5

I wonder would my Graphics driver be the culprit in why my Cubase window minimizes everytime I add a new instrument track and does not reappear until that Instrument is loaded…

6

@anboithrinciuin

I certainly don’t have an answer for this is some pretty odd behavior, but applying what @Martin.Jirsak suggested above for my situation won’t hurt. I also did a “clean install” as offered by the nVidia driver installation.

I don’t know what kind of GPU brand you have, but there must a be similar Custom install option for your driver set.

That said if you do gaming on your system and are dependent on your GPU video drivers, that’s tricky. Though you could uninstall everything as Martin outline, just install the audio driver, test Cubase for your particular problem – then if OK, install whatever other parts of your GPU package you need.

7

I also have Nvidia. I may give these steps a go although it’s not a huge issue and maybe not worth messing around with things.

If I do go ahead with it I’ll post back here with the results in case anyone else comes along with the same issues.

8

@dishcandanty - Pardon late reply. Good suggestions, some of which had already applied. But have for now solved the problem as per Martin’s suggestion.

9

No worries! Mostly wanted to finally write down my stuff somewhere. Glad to hear your the graphics card updates fixed your issues!