Hello Cubase colleagues,
I have installed CB12 version 12.0.60 (the latest update) under WIN10 with hardware that is sufficient in every aspect. I encountered the following situation: From one day to the next, I suddenly started experiencing problems with opening and saving projects. Both actions took approximately 10 minutes or even longer. Previously, it only took around 5 seconds! In the Task-Manager, I noticed that Cubase was consuming only about 1% of the CPU. When the approximately 10 minutes passed, the project opened correctly and was editable. I guess you agree, Cubase is not usable in this state.
At first, I thought that some file related to Cubase or a third-party plugin was corrupted or something similar. I uninstalled CB12 along with all the components I was using, and then reinstalled it to the latest version. However, the problem persisted and there was no improvement.
After browsing through various forums, it became clear that this issue had already occurred in CB11 and even before that, exactly as it did in my case. The problem, both back then and in my installation, was that several other hard drives were connected to the computer running Cubase, such as USB or WLAN drives, like NAS. The recommendation from the forum was to disconnect all drives that are not directly connected to Cubase from the system. I followed this advice during my installation, and the problem disappeared! It was completely reproducible. To summarize, when opening and/or saving a CPR file, Cubase searches obviously for some file(s) on any connected hard drive or network drive, which results in a significant delay.
So, this is the problem and the solution (or perhaps not quite 
). Now, I have a question for all of you with your experience. Can anyone tell me how to (as someone who cannot read a dump file) make Cubase stop searching on all available drives? Is there a setting that can restrict the search to specific drives or areas? It is also strange that the problem suddenly occurred without any Cubase updates, but perhaps there was a Windows 10 update - who knows?
Perhaps my hint can help other users who are experiencing a similar issue, and I would be grateful for any “plausible” suggestions so that I don’t have to disable all external drives every time I use Cubase.
Thanks to everyone, and I wish you all successful projects.
I don’t think that Cubase searches all attached drives, but it does seem to somehow lock all it can find, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Maybe to prevent some other applications from unmounting them, as a preventive action in case the user wants to record/playback files on that medium.
I don’t know whether that is also true for NAS mounts.
Have you made sure that all your external drives are properly accessible and have no problems when using them with other programs, windows explorer and so on? I could imagine that e.g. one drive has some problem, and when Cubase wants to access/lock it, it runs into repeated timeouts (it shouldn’t do that for ten minutes imo, and eventually should give error messages…)
If you have several external drives and/or NAS connected, you could try disabling them one by one and then open a project to see whether the problem disappears. That way you can find the culprit and only have to disconnect that…
Hi fese, thanks for your quick reply.
You are right, nothing in this case is for sure, all is assumed.
Your proposal I can try - I mean one by one disconnect …
Nevertheless the mentioned hint in one of the forums - absolutely the same case I face and the appearance of my issue from one day to the other.
And yes, I can access all connected disks without problems e.g. with Win-explorer.
But I’ll try out your idea, its definately worth. Currently I don’t have an acceptable better solution to avoid the issue.
Thanks again - will report my results.
I’m having the same issue. My projects are stored on an external 4T SSD drive. My Spitfire Libraries are on the external drive, while my CineBrass (Musio) is on the C drive. I tested access to the external drive, and there was no problem. My project is using four instances of Kontk and 2 Musio. Nothing else is running on my laptop. CPU has been spinning at 18%
| Device name | pkennedy |
|---|---|
| Processor | 11th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz 2.30 GHz |
| Installed RAM | 128 GB (128 GB usable) |
| Device ID | 90C37BAF-3A86-450F-9BFD-5EF8C0659AE2 |
| Product ID | 00330-80000-00000-AA860 |
| System type | 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor |
| Pen and touch | No pen or touch input is available for this display |
| C: drive 2T | |
| D: drive 2T | |
| External drive 4T |
Hi - here’s my first update after some tests.
- Disconnecting all external drives does not bring any improvement.
Insight: External drives are not the issue. - Only disconnecting the computer from the WLAN/LAN network restores normal behavior of Cubase - opening/saving projects within seconds.
- Even restricting the computer to the home network and blocking internet access does not bring any improvement. I achieved this in two ways: firstly, by blocking it on the router (parental control), and secondly, as a rule in Windows Defender.
- Strange and unexplainable to me is the following:
a. When the WLAN/LAN is turned off - disconnecting the network connection - Cubase shows in the Steinberg Hub which is shown in the beginning, that it cannot establish an internet connection. Opening/closing projects works here without problems.
b. This is slightly different when only (see topic 3) Cubase’s access to the internet is blocked, no matter how. In the Steinberg Hub, there is still a connection to the internet and notifications about Steinberg news, for example are visible - I have no idea why this is possible.
I’m sorry, at the moment I have no idea what the problem could be. hopefully somebody else in the forum can help.