Cubase 12 Didn't Ask For Microphone Access - Monterey

Cubase
4

SOLUTION

Ok, I’ve managed to solve it and will post the solution here that hopefully someone might find useful.

  • This issue is a unique to Cubase 12 users upgrading from 10.5/11 using Monterey / Big Sur and it doesn’t ask you for microphone access. It’s due to the licensing change and a few other things.

You end up with nothing in System Preferences ->Security and Privacy → Microphone to tick … like this:

Screen Shot 2022-03-12 at 3.50.21 pm
Screen Shot 2022-03-12 at 3.50.21 pm780×699 104 KB

  • It appears as though Cubase 12 only does the full plugin scan on first run if ALL CUBASE USER PREFERENCES OF PREVIOUS VERSIONS are also removed. So I had to remove the 10.5 and 11 prefs before Cubase 12 actually rescanned and asked me to access the Microphone (which it never did on first run when I installed it). Cubase 12 seems to rely on pervious plugin scans and a few other things unlike previous versions which would do it fresh if there was no preference file for that version.

  • It’s also special because the license files are now located in a few folders for Cubase 12 whereas you can just nuke the entire folder for 10.5 and 11 as they check the USB key for license access.

When I did the same for Cubase 10.5 and 11 (because I reset the Microphone access with the command listed in my first post), all I had to do was remove the user preferences related to that version and it asked for access on first boot after scanning all the plugins. It then just checks the USB licenser and bam

BACKUP ALL OF THESE FOLDERS AND FILES FIRST

/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.steinberg.cubaseXX.plist 
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/Cubase\ XX

XX being all versions you see listed.

THEN RESTRUCTURE AS FOLLOWS:

Remove All Cubase related folders in:

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/CubaseXX

(XX being every single version listed)

Remove Files:

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.steinberg.components.coreaudio2asio.plist 
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.steinberg.cubaseXX.plist

(XX being every single version listed)

Then, in

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg

You have to remove everything EXCEPT you have to leave

/Activation\ Manager

In place.

Similarly in

/Library/Application\ Support/Steinberg

Remove everything EXCEPT you have to leave

/Activation\ Manager

In place.

Once you have removed all of these things, run Cubase 12 and it will rescan all plugins (this is how you know it’s working) and eventually ask you for Microphone access.

After that - confirm. you have it in your System Preferences → Security and Privacy → Microphone

Screen Shot 2022-03-12 at 3.54.56 pm
Screen Shot 2022-03-12 at 3.54.56 pm780×699 104 KB

Then quit Cubase 12 and take all of the files you backed up and put them back where they came from … and run Cubase 12 again - it will start with your normal setup/preferences.

I hope this helps - there seems to be a serious loophole here with the new licensing system where you cannot remove EVERYTHING from preferences and re-install Cubase 12 as you could with 10.5/11 etc.

I was very surprised when on first execution Cubase 12 didn’t scan all my plugins - so this was the tell that it must have been referring to my old preferences in order to OK them. This is always what seems to have prevented the program from asking for this permission.

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