Cubase 12.0.52 Keeps Crashing on Startup in Win11

Cubase
1

Running on a new Microsoft Surface Studio 2+ with Win11 and initially it was working fine, but now it crashes on every startup. Sometimes I get to the screen where I can delete or reset preferences (sometimes not), but no matter what I do doesn’t seem to matter. When it does start to work, I get to a screen where I have to reselect my audio interface and again, sometimes I can but sometimes it freezes before I do. Either way, it never goes past that.

Any suggestions?

2

To get an idea the DMP files would be nice. Can you please upload one or two of these dump files?

3

You can also search your Windows Logs for errors (especially the Windows > System log). There might be clues there on what’s going wrong.

4

Sure, here’s last two…
Cubase 12.0.52.393 64bit 2023.1.8 20.53.06.481-freezedump.dmp (909.2 KB)
Cubase 12.0.52.393 64bit 2023.1.8 20.32.09.460-freezedump.dmp (921.5 KB)

5

Thanks, but couldn’t track down there those would be. Do you know exactly what folder I should be looking for in Win11?

6

I don’t have Win11 yet. But below is a guide on where to find the error logs in Win11. Basically you need to open Event Viewer. There will be several different logs in there. Like Application logs and others. But the most useful is the System log under the Windows heading.

  • There are usually tons of notifications about things happening on your computer. Look for errors or warnings, which will have a different icon. You might have to scroll down in the log for a bit to find the problems. Deciphering the error messages can be a bit advanced. But it’s a starting point where you can start fixing underlaying Windows problems that could be causing some software to misbehave.
7

Ok, the dump points to the Audio system (wdmaud.drv) that seems to not respond correctly. However, it is not fully clear what is causing this problem.

May be the event log has some more information about this. Have you tried finding something in the log that @valleyken describes?

8

  • It seems somehow related to an audio driver issue. I would definitely recommend to have a look in the EventViewer logs. There might be some error messages about the issue, that can be googled to come to a solution.

  • Something that helped me also, is installing the DriverGuide software. It will list possible updates to drivers. The free version allows you to “manually” update single drivers. It’s a bit of a pain to update the drivers manually, but the software shows a link with a description of how to do it. No need to update all the drivers it finds, as many are insignificant drivers like usb hubs for example. But it could help fix issues with the audio drivers.

9

I would be very careful with such a piece of software, that scans my computer and doing stuff I do not see and do not want.

10

Maybe. But I found it helpful. It helped me fix quite some issues after I installed a better cpu in my laptop, which was stretching the limits of the recommended specs. It helped me install updated drivers for some components, after which my laptop started working a lot better. I don’t think there is anything malicious in the software, since DriverGuide has been around for quite a long time. I hadn’t used it before the cpu upgrade. But now I’m even thinking of upgrading so that it can automatically update my drivers.

11

I was looking for a solution… seems like they don’t give a poop cause there’s no answer here and no answer on the 1000 other posts about it. I’d die to have GarageBand on my Windows computer it’s like 10 times better and It’s effing free.

12

For the record, the problem still exists and at this point it is completely ridiculous. I literally cannot boot the software. I’ve tried turning all VST plug-ins, keeping my settings, deleting my settings, switching to defaults and nothing consistently works. The reason why this keeps happening needs to be explained by someone at Steinberg (to hopefully figure out how to fix it) and more importantly, needs to be fixed.

I had just switched over from Logic Pro X on a Mac because of the difficulties of working with external hardware (synths and effects) and was very hopeful the experience would be better with Cubase, but clearly not.

Something needs to be done.

13

@Bob_ODonnell and @gftel36 , I would recommend contacting Steinberg Support or your local Yamaha/Steinberg distributor if you haven’t yet. They may be able to help figure out what’s causing your crashes:

14

One thing that came to my mind (and what I completely forgot to ask) is, did you try to enable the WinRT MIDI mode?

You can find that if you go to Studio → Studio Setup and then select the checkbox marked in this screenshot

image
image824×463 90.1 KB

After that try to restart Cubase and see if it still fails.

15

Thanks Juergen. FYI, yes, I did try that, though since I may have had the program reset preferences, I guess I’ll have to check again.