Cubase 12 Pro still crashing on exit

I’m running Cubase Pro 12 version 12.0.20. Intermittently Cubase is hanging on Quit, and has to be ended in Task Manager. I’m working on what is so far a simple project, with a Groove Agent SE part, a Trilian (made by Spectrasonics) part, and one audio track. Having saved the project, it doesn’t seem to matter whether I close the project then quit, or quit without closing, the hang can occur; but not every time. When I restart Cubase I’m invited to send logs to Steinberg, which I’ve done. The issue did not happen with Cubase 11 or earlier versions. My set up is as follows:
Cubase Pro 12 version12.0.20.263
Groove Agent SE5 version 5.10.152 (64 bit)
Trilian version 1.6.2d (which is the latest version)
Audio interface: Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 3rd generation. Buffer size 512.
Windows PC running Windows 10 Home 21H2 64 bit, with 16 GB RAM
CPU is Intel Core i5-4590 3.30 Ghz. Here’s the latest crash dump:
Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit 2022.5.12 16.49.12.845-freezedump.dmp (1.2 MB)

All plugins up to date and no other problems when running the sessions.
Also, I kind of find it bad practice to repeatedly blame 3rd party apps when they crash your host, instead of making sure this does not happen by i.e. sandboxing, or by ensuring there are always messages where the problem came from.
There will always be some bad coded plugins, so you gotta make sure your part is gonna work, 'cause everything else is out of your control anyway. I’d not want to let some sloppy 3rd party apps ruin the reputation and stability of the program I wrote.

The support staff and also you guys would save so much time troubleshooting if Cubase could do this automatically. Let alone how all the rants about “cubase crashing” would vanish instantly.

As a developer by catching exceptions in the code you make sure your program runs, no matter what. Thats part of your job, and it is necessary for a professional editing program. Its also not the job of your customers to troubleshoot obvious bugs.

Cubase is on its way to get the perfect DAW, but to achieve that, there must be a solution for these unpredictable crashes caused by plugins.

Hi,

This specific crash comes from Groove Agent. Please make sure you have the latest update installed.

Could you attach more DMP files, please?

On Windows 10 64bit, latest updates installed.

Sorry, no files generated

Hi,

Generate a DMP file and share it via Dropbox or similar service, please.

Use Microsoft ProcDump utility to generate a DMP file, please.

  1. Please download ProcDump64 from Microsoft (~650kB) and extract the archive to a local folder on your harddisk.

  2. Run Command Prompt (cmd) as administrator (right click and select “run as administrator”)

  3. Navigate (in the Command Prompt) to the folder with the extracted procdump file.
    For example:
    cd C:\ Users \ \ Downloads \ Procdump
    Note: the dmp file will be written into that folder.

  4. Launch Cubase/Nuendo. You can work as usual. At any time, change to the command prompt and start procdump, to monitor Cubase/Nuendo for unexpected behavior (see next step).

  5. Launch procdump64 via Command Prompt:
    Cubase 12:
    procdump64 -e -h -t Cubase12

Nuendo 12:
procdump64 -e -h -t Nuendo12

The -h option will write a dmp file in case of an application hang. This might kick in too early sometimes, in case some action takes a little longer. Feel free to skip the “-h” option, if you are only up for fetching crashes.
The option -e will catch exeptions and the option -t terminations of the application.

  1. Prodump is now monitoring the Cubase/Nuendo process and will write a crash log, in case Cubase/Nuendo crashes or hangs. Perform the action that causes Cubase/Nuendo to crash and send us the generated crash dmp.

ZIP and share the DMP file via Dropbox or similar service, please.

Hi. I misstated my version of Groove Agent SE5 above, it’s actually 5.1.0.152 (64 bit). Steinberg Download Assistant seems to be saying this IS the latest version.
At an earlier stage of the project, when Trilian was not loaded but Groove Agent SE was, I was occasionally getting a message from Cubase saying I needed to Save As… because the program had encountered a serious problem. Those messages stopped when I replaced a crash cymbal sample I had imported from Cubase’s media library into GA SE5 with a different one. Here are some other crash dump files, all from Cubase 12.0.20 and all from the same project:
Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit 2022.5.12 16.49.12.845-freezedump.dmp (1.2 MB)
Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit 2022.5.10 17.06.29.669-freezedump.dmp (1.2 MB)
Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit 2022.4.30 15.15.12.413.dmp (957.5 KB)

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Hi,

All of these are in Groove Agent.

Do you have a repro by any chance?

Sorry, I don’t know what a repro is.

Hi,

Sorry… I mean, of you know how to reproduce the crash. Like: if I do this, this and this, Cubase crashes.

The hang on exit doesn’t seem to be triggered by any particular action on my part. Just loading the project and exiting without making any changes can trigger the hang on exit; so can making some changes, saving, then trying to exit. And it doesn’t seem to happen on every exit.

The project itself is still fairly simple, an audio track, a Kontakt 5 part, one instance of Halion Sonic SE playing two parts, a GA part and a Trilian part, with MIDI tracks to drive the various sounds. GA was initially populated in a rather roundabout way. I dragged a hip hop loop from Cubase’s media library into a sampler track in the project, and sliced it there to get a different MIDI trigger note for each drum sound (as per a Venus Theory video tutorial). Then, wanting more control over the individual sounds, I exported them from the sampler track into GA SE and removed the sampler track. I then added a couple of extra samples from Cubase’s media library into GA SE, one of which was a long crash cymbal sound which I replaced because it seemed to be making Cubase unstable.

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Cubase 12 is completely unusable. If I had known it was going to be THIS problematic I never would have paid to upgrade. I have a project due tomorrow night that I have been trying to work on for the past 2 weeks, but Cubase keeps freezing every time I try and do ANYTHING. This is ridiculous! How did this ever get past the testing process before being rolled out to users??

Here is probably the first of many .dmp file links to come.
Cubase 12 Freeze DMP File

EDIT: Here is a 2nd link. I literally cannot do anything in Cubase 12 without it freezing and needing to force close.
Cubase Freeze DMP 2

cubase 12 pro here,
suddenly begun chrashing when
closing!
was working fine for a few weeks,
didn’t change anything!
it looks like this is caused by cubase desktop maximized or minimized!
but i don’t know how to keep the c12 desktop maximized! it always changes to the win10 desktop until there’s a project fully opened!
and always license check error when starting!
sometimes there’s no sound in opened project!(uad apollo twin usb)
i have to change to another driver and then back to the uad driver!
very annoying

What happens now with regard to the freeze on exit I am getting because of Groove Agent SE5? Do I need to report it elsewhere, eg as a bug?

NB Reverting to Cubase 11 is not a workaround. I tried opening the same project in Cubase Pro 11.0.41, but Cubase 11 loads the same version of Groove Agent SE5 as Cubase 12 does, and also encountered a problem. Here’s a crash dump file from Cubase 11:

Cubase 11.0.41.448 64bit 2022.4.28 20.56.57.427.dmp (873.8 KB)

Before doing this, I don’t know if this helps but I just found two dmps and they dont have the usual name, there is a “freezedump” in it: Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit 2022.5.12 10.04.43.342-freezedump
But these have 0KB size so can not upload.

Done:

I am also having the exit freeze on Cubase 12.0.20.263 64bit.

The attached .dmp files show the freeze with 12.0.10.247 as well.

Repro requires opening certain Cubase projects, closing them and then attempting to exit Cubase.
I cannot correlate any particular plugin instance to the projects that freeze upon exit.

Created a bug report now.
In my case there is no DMP file created and using debugging software like Procdump64 does not work with well known plugin developers. But I am not really convinced it has entirely to do with 3rd party plugins, as the crash happens sporadically, not always with all projects.

Time to talk about sandboxing as a necessary feature.

Unfortunately Cubase12 freezes all the time for me too. If I load a plugin (like UVI Falcon VST3, but it is not the only one) it takes a long time too.
I downloaded Ableton for testing, there is no such problem everything runs smoothly.
You can download some Freezedumps here:
FreezeDump

Hi,

No worries, it will be processed by Steinberg.

Hi,

Reported to Steinberg. Thank you.

I’m sorry, there is neither Cubase nor plug-in mentioned in the DMP file. To me it looks like a crash completely out of Cubase.