Cubase 12 crashes on startup

Windows 10 Pro 21H2. Cubase 12 Pro 12.0.10
RME interface, latest drivers and bios.

  1. Fresh Windows 10 21H2 install

  2. Fresh Cubase (first ever on this machine) 12 Pro install (activated yesterday)

  3. Hangs when (randomly):

  • showing welcome/news/project select popup window
  • while loading last project
  • after loading the project
    It just becomes totally unresponsive. Dump file points to wdmaud.drv.

2nd install (full reinstall) - Let’s waste some time
1st run - WOW IT WORKS! Almost! Hanged after 1 minute.

2nd run - The application was terminated with an error while executing the following file: freeze (oh, meanwhile I’ve downloaded WinDbg to see what dmp file contains)

3rd run - The application ended unexpectedly